What one person can do, when they just do it!

One man had a heart for God and for God's creation. One man followed his calling without looking back.

Have you ever wondered what your life would look like if you served instead of being served if you listened instead of spoke and if your day was about truly caring for others?

I was given this obituary of Waymon E. Pritchard today and have not stopped thinking what this man did with his life and how he cared as God has called us too. I am sure he was told, well done good and faithful servant.

Waymon E. Pritchard was the first Director of the Raleigh Rescue Mission.

A GENTLE, BLUE-EYED MAN WITH AN UNWAVERING MISSION 

Reporter: TREVA JONES Staff writer

Publication: THE NEWS & OBSERVER

Edition: FINAL

Section: PERSPECTIVE

Page: J3

Last Printed: 10/14/1990  Last On Web:  

At an age when many men are ready to sit back and assess their accomplishments, the Rev. Waymon E. Pritchard still is fighting battles. The founding director of the Raleigh Rescue Mission, now serving as its chief fund-raiser, Mr. Pritchard is widely regarded as the formidable leader of his forces in the conflict. But, as is he won't, he casts himself in a supporting role.

"The battle's not mine, it's the Lord's, " says Mr. Pritchard, 62. "He's going to protect us on this." But the silver-haired, bespectacled preacher with pale blue eyes is ready to give the Lord a helping hand.

"I will fight if necessary."

The battle is for the continued existence of the mission on East Hargett Street downtown, where Mr. Pritchard helped get it started in 1961. Providing shelter over the years for thousands of men, women, and children, and helping hundreds more shake off the bonds of alcoholism, he served as executive director of the Raleigh Rescue Mission until 1989, when William R. Brown succeeded him and Mr. Pritchardbecame director of development and public relations.

Downtown redevelopment consultants have said the city should consider putting either a performing arts center or high-density housing where the Rescue Mission stands, one block east of Moore Square. Waymon Pritchard isn't going to sit still and watch it happen.

"We feel we're where we should be, " he says. "We feel this is where the people need us, "he says. Last week, this battle was going Mr. Pritchard's way. A city council committee endorsed the option of locating the proposed performing arts center farther south, which would leave The Raleigh Rescue Mission and the nearby Salvation Army quarters where they are.

But as downtown Raleigh grows and changes, the Rescue Mission will continue to face development pressures. Mr. Pritchard says he has friends, including powerful business people and others in high places. If he has to, he'll call on them for support. He's not one bit timid.

At the same time, he is facing a challenge on another front. He must raise $300,000 to make up a budget shortage left by the mission's operation of Riverside Boys Camp for troubled boys near Clayton. The mission was forced to close the camp last month because it didn't have the money to run it. But plans are to try to get the camp going again next year.

Mr. Pritchard says he's already begun contacting supporters to raise money. Likely, he'll get it. Often described by those who know him as a gentleman, he also is a persuasive one.

John R. Prince, a longtime board member, says that when he thinks of Mr. Pritchard, he recalls a statement one board member made years ago at a time when the Rescue Mission needed money.

"He said an ant can eat an elephant if he makes enough trips, " says Mr. Prince. Of Mr. Pritchard, he says simply: "He doesn't know the word 'no."'

Raleigh City Council member Mary Nooe might agree. She and Mr. Pritchard have crossed swords more than once.

"What makes the man tick is his ability, " says Ms. Nooe, no slouch herself in the strong personality department. She got to know Mr. Pritchard several years ago when she was a director of Recycle Raleigh for Food and Fuel, which established the Capital Area Food Coalition. He contended that the recycling group's project was not realistic and that it detracted from the existing mission work, says Ms. Nooe.

"Waymon, because he's done what he's done for so many years, he has a manner, occasionally, that makes people think he knows all the answers. He doesn't claim to know all the answers, but his manner, sometimes, he comes across that way.

"We had some tiffs because I was going to save the world, and Waymon already knew how to save the world, or thought he did, " says Ms. Nooe, who laughs about it now. He hasn't saved the world, but he has made Raleigh a better place by providing services for people who need them, says Ms. Nooe.

Mr. Pritchard came here in 1961 when he accepted the director's job and moved with his family from Atlanta. The Raleigh Rescue Mission then was nothing but a handful of men with a dream and a building fund bank account of $1,981. Since then, the Rescue Mission has grown steadily.

The first building was an old house at 314 E. Hargett St. Other buildings were bought or built, and programs were expanded. The total value of mission property today is more than $3 million, and its 1990-91 operating budget is nearly $1 million.

Last year, the rescue mission each day served about 184 meals and sheltered an average of 72 lodgers in its various programs, assisted 53 people who went through a program to kick alcohol or drug dependency and assisted 24 paroled prisoners.

The mission's Clayton-area Morton-Pritchard Farm, originally used for an alcohol rehabilitation program, more recently was used for the Riverside camp. Now, it is used for a hay-farming operation worked by two men recovering from alcoholism. The Open Door Chapel, at 212 S. Person St., is the mission church and has 30 beds rented by night or week by men who've gotten jobs but can't afford to rent apartments. The main building on East Hargett is the intake center for all programs and provides emergency lodging and meals for men, a smaller program for women, and the mission's a long-term treatment program for those with drug or alcohol abusers or other social problems.

The path that brought Mr. Pritchard to the Raleigh Rescue Mission was not a smooth one.

"I don't think I chose rescue mission work, " he says. "I think the Lord proverbially put his foot into the middle of my back and pushed me into it." He was a baby when his father died, and his mother, who had a strong sense of values she passed on to her children, insisted on paying off all accumulated bills caused by his father's illness. It broke the family.

Young Waymon learned early the misery alcohol can cause after his widowed mother married an alcoholic. Mr. Pritchard credits two older sisters, Bonnie and Rachel, with motivating and pushing him as a young man. Juggling jobs, he worked his way through college, never forgetting his mother's advice: "You might be poor, but you can be proud, and you can be clean." He became interested in mission work in high school when he and a group of boys conducted a little mission in Asheville. In college, when a group formed a rescue mission-prayer group, he was elected president. He met some outstanding rescue mission workers during those years.

"I guess it was just sort of expected of me by many people that I'd go into mission work, " he says with a grin. But it took a serious accident -- which temporarily paralyzed him -- to put his feet firmly on that career path. OK?

In 1951, while he was attending Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., a 1,500-pound bale of paper toppled over on him. Told he would never walk again, he recalls, he made this vow:

"Lord, if you'll allow me to get out of this bed and work for you, I'll do so. And if you don't allow me to get out of this bed, I'll find something to do for you." Eight days later, he was walking with canes. Six months later, he threw away his braces. And he kept his promise.

He graduated from Bob Jones in 1953 and was ordained a Baptist minister. He took his first mission job in Bridgeport, Conn., after he received a letter telling him he was needed there.

"Let's face it, " he smiles. "It's good to be needed." Other mission jobs followed in Greenville, S.C., and Atlanta before he came to Raleigh in 1961.

As he speaks, Mr. Pritchard roams from the Rescue Mission lobby to the dining room, to the kitchen, to the chapel, and back to the dining room, with a stop on the way to speak to two men breaking the rules.

"Hey, fellas, you know we don't allow that here, " he says, raising his voice only enough to be heard by two men hunkered down behind the building, swilling beer. They apologize repeatedly as they rush to toss the brown bottles into a garbage can.

Working at the Union Mission in Atlanta during the late 1950s, Mr. Pritchard recognized that he lacked the leadership skills he needed for motivating a board of directors. Under the guidance of Union's director, he learned how to run a mission.

"I do believe, as far as strengths go, I do believe have to know how to work with people, " he says now. "It's not what you say to people, it's how you say what you say to people." William Brown, who became executive director at Raleigh Rescue Mission last year when Mr. Pritchard took on new duties, says that what makes a man go, is work.

"He's probably a Type A personality, " Mr. Brown says. "He's a doer." He says when Mr. Pritchard is at home, he's never content to sit and do nothing. When he drops into a chair to watch television, he keeps a bowl of pecans and a nutcracker close at hand. He'll crack a bowlful of nuts while he watches the screen.

Board chairman William E. Mangum says Mr. Pritchard is a man who feels equally comfortable with a down-and-outer and with the state governor:

"I don't know anyone who matches up with his work better than Waymon."

Mr. Pritchard says his own worst fault likely is his temper, which he has fought all his life to control.

Years ago, in another job in another city, a drunken man started to slug him. Mr. Pritchard let fly with a left hook to his jaw.

"I laid him on the floor, "says Mr. Pritchard. "I have not laid a hand on a man since that day."

The left hook to the jaw didn't hurt the drunk. But Mr. Pritchard has gone through life with a crooked little finger on his left hand. The blow broke it.

For the record

WAYMON E. PRITCHARD

Born: Sept. 24, 1928, in Hartwell, Ga. Family: Wife, Dorothy Romine Pritchard; sons, Thomas E. Pritchard of Jacksonville, Terrence G. Pritchard of Wake Forest; daughter, Cheryl Pritchard McLeod of Garner; brother, Joe Vaughan of Asheville; sisters, Bonnie Denson of Front Royal, Va., Rachel Gathany of Toccoa, Ga., Mary Haynes of Hudson. Education: Bob Jones University, Greenville, S. C. (B.A., religion, 1953). Religious affiliation: Baptist minister, ordained 1953. Career: Bridgeport, Conn., Christian Union director of men (1953-54); Greenville, S.C., Rescue Mission superintendent (1954-56); Atlanta Union Mission superintendent (1956-61); Raleigh Rescue Mission executive director (1961-89), director of development and public relations (since 1989).