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A century of ministry in Saline County will be celebrated Sunday at New Hope United Methodist Church.  New Hope United Methodist Church in Benton will be the setting Sunday for a centennial celebration. The congregation can trace its beginnings to September 1908. Community residents are invited to the day’s activities, which will begin at 10:30 a.m.  Original structure for New Hope Methodist Church in Benton was built 100 years ago. The structure was destroyed by a wind storm in 1954. v
Among the special guests will be Susan Dunn Tilly, who grew up in New Hope Church and went on to sing on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City and La Scala in Milan, Italy, even singing with famed tenor Luciano Pavarotti along the way.
District Superintendent Chester Jones will be preaching at the 10:30 a.m. worship service where Dunn will present several musical selections.
Community residents are invited to participate in the events that will include a catered luncheon following the morning service. An afternoon of singing will follow the meal.
Centennial commemorative plates featuring pen and ink drawings of the original church building and the current structure will be available to purchase for $20 each, event coordinator Daisy Fowler said.
Dunn, contacted by telephone Wednesday at her home in North Carolina, said she is looking forward to the celebration and the opportunity to reconnect with old church friends.
She said she plans to sing “The Lord’s Prayer,” “The King Is Coming,” “How Great Thou Art,” “His Eye Is On the Sparrow” and “maybe a couple of other things.”
A 1972 graduate of Bauxite High School, Tilly has been a member of the music faculty at Duke University since 1994.
She noted that she played the piano at New Hope for many years. “And, of course, I sang there. They were sort of my first audience and very, very enthusiastic. They were always very much in my corner.
“It’s good to be going back,” Tilly added. “A hundred years of being in that community — that ‘s really great.”
Tilly, who had just returned from a vacation at the beach with her family, said she and her husband, Scott, planned to leave today for Arkansas and would be arriving on Friday.
“It will be good to see old friends,” she said. “I haven’t seen Mom since March.”
Tilly is the daughter of Cynthia Dunn of the Shaw community and the late A.C. Dunn.
“I remember being at that church when I was a little girl,” she said. “I can recall Easter egg hunts on the front lawn ... that was before the church had air conditioning and before they got stained glass windows.
“They’ve done a lot of building additions and improvements since then,” she noted. “The building has changed, but they are the same friendly people.”
According to the church history, New Hope was built between Sept. 10, 1908, and July 11, 1909. W.A. Ritchey, at 92, is the oldest living member of the congregation, having joined in 1938.
The land for the church was bought by the trustees of the Benton Methodist Church from Ambrose Hope and his wife, Cora Hope. In 1947 the land was deeded to the New Hope Methodist Church trustees, who were Albert Caple. W.T. Barlow and John Smith.
In 1954, the original New Hope Church building was destroyed by a wind storm and the congregation built the existing structure in 1955. A donation of $700 came from the division of National Missions of the Board of Missions of the Methodist Church, plus $350 from another source within the denomination. The congregation also received a $4,704 loan from Benton State Bank, paying off the loan at $98 per month, on Oct. 26, 1959.
The current structure was dedicated Nov. 15, 1959. Conducting the service were the Rev. Cecil Gill and the Rev. E.D. Galloway, who was district superintendent. Trustees who held the note were Webb Caple, J.T. Mackey, W.T. Barlow and Sherrill Pedron.
In 1960, a parsonage was built with another $4,000 borrowed from Benton Savings & Loan and that debt was retired Aug. 12, 1968.
In 1978 the Rev. Clayton Harrison became pastor of New Hope and Mt. Carmel and in the early 1980s New Hope became a church on its own with Harrison as its pastor. He continued in that role until his death in a hunting accident on Oct. 7, 1988.
The Rev. Guy Downing served as pastor until June 10, 1960, and the Rev. David O’Dell served as pastor of the two congregations until January 1991.
New Hope again was made a church by itself with the Rev. Jerry Roddy and then the Dan Smith providing pastoral leadership.
In 2004, the Cornelia De Lee became new Hope’s first female pastor.
The Rev. Dee Edwards is the current pastor of the church, which is on New Hope Road off Arkansas 35.
In 1909 New Hope was on the circuit with Benton’s First Church and Oak Grove Methodist Church. At that time, each church had its own Sunday school, with the three churches recorded a combined total of 200 members.
S.W. Dawson was Sunday school superintendent at New Hope. At a later date, New Hope was put on the Bryant circuit, which also included five other congregations — Mt. Carmel, Salem, Congo, Oak Hill and Bryant.
In the mid-1940s, New Hope Church was transferred to the Arkadelphia District. Along with Ebenezer and Traskwood Methodist churches, the church formed the Traskwood Circuit.
Around 1955 New Hope was added to the Little Rock District and became part of the same circuit with Point View Methodist. In the late 1970 and early 1980s, New Hope and Mt. Carmel were combined into a circuit.
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