Attendance tops 10,000 at the largest of Lads to Leaders’ half-dozen Easter weekend conventions across the nation.
By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Twenty-two years ago, my young family loaded a U-Haul truck and trekked east on Interstate 40 so I could chase a big dream.
No, I didn’t move to Nashville to seek country music stardom. Sadly, I can’t carry a tune.
Instead, we left our home in Oklahoma and relocated to Music City — hundreds of miles from family and friends — so I could work for The Associated Press.
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We called Middle Tennessee home for less than a year before I transferred to AP’s Dallas bureau — much closer to loved ones — but oh, what a fun 11 months we enjoyed in the Volunteer State.
On the professional side, I covered the 2002 fight over a proposed state lottery in Tennessee (it passed) and a prayer service the night the Iraq War began in 2003.
Other memorable stories ranged from a profile of a man who paid children $10 each to learn the 10 Commandments to a feature on Christian music taking over bars and nightspots during Gospel Music Week to an interview with the 104-year-old widow of famous traveling evangelist Marshall Keeble.
On the personal side, my wife, Tamie, our three children and I saw a few Grand Ole Opry shows and visited the picturesque Great Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee.
My family found a friendly, loving spiritual home with the Southern Hills Church of Christ in Franklin, Tenn. That’s how we came to experience the Lads to Leaders convention in Nashville for the first time in 2003.
This column appears in the online edition of The Christian Chronicle.
Photo provided by Rhonda Zorn Fernandez
Faith. Family. Fastballs. 