Arrice Hayden Taylor -- Minister and Gospel Singer

 

Arrice Hayden Taylor

Arrice Hayden Taylor was born on March 30, 1937 in Trigg County, Kentucky.  He was the son of William Hayden Taylor and Ressie Pauline Noel, both natives of Trigg County. He had three brothers, Wallace Wade Taylor, William Dorris Taylor and Dale Taylor.

On September 24, 1955, he married Johnnie Thomas, the daughter of John Herbert Thomas and Willie D. Meador.  Johnnie was born on December 9, 1935 in Trigg County. Johnnie worked for many years with the Social Security Administration in Hopkinsville, Kentucky as well as the Pennyrile Area Development District.  Arrice and Johnnie were the parents of two daughters, Melanie Grace Taylor born in 1959 and Elizabeth Lynn Taylor born in 1961.

Beginning in 1959 Arrice began serving as a minister and evangelist in the Baptist Church.  He served as pastor of Chapel Hill Baptist Church in Princeton, Kentucky, Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in Dawson Springs, Kentucky, Cedar Bluff Baptist Church also in Princeton as well as the Cerulean Baptist Church and Canton Baptist Church, both in Trigg County.  The last sixteen years of his life he served as pastor of the Pugh Flat Baptist Church in Trigg County.

Brother Arrice was widely known for his musical talents.  In March 1962, he organized the Jubilee Quartet whose original group include Bro. Arrice, his wife Johnnie, Gerald Dan Turner and Grace Thomas with Betty Killebrew as pianist.  Later he formed another quartet knows as the LandMark Quartet consisting of Bro. Arrice, Jerry and Dianne Ford and Cloyd Kneg with Clay King as the pianist. The quartets gained widespread popularity throughout western Kentucky and in Tennessee and a number of albums were recorded by the group.  Bro. Arrice served for 31 years as the master of ceremonies on a Sunday morning program known as the Jubilee Quartet Time on a local Hopkinsville radio station.  His wife, Johnnie, assisted him on-air in the weekly radio show.  Johnnie was also a well-known pianist who was called upon many times by families to play the funeral of a loved one as well as playing in various nursing homes.

In addition to serving as a minister, Bro. Arrice worked in the construction business since the 1950s and was president of the local carpenters’ union in Hopkinsville.

Bro, Arrice died on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky as a result of injuries sustained in an accidental fall while working on the roof of his home.  At his funeral, selections from his Jubilee Quartet and LandMark Quartet music was played by a large choir comprised of his fellow singers and his musical friends sang some of his favorite old-time hymns.  He was buried in the Green Hill Memorial Gardens in Hopkinsville.  His wife, Johnnie, died on September 28, 2021 and was buried next to him.

Arrice and Johnnie Taylor grave site

Arrice and Johnnie Thomas Taylor

LINEAGE: (Arrice Hayden Taylor was the husband of Johnnie Thomas.  Johnnie was the daughter of John Herbert and Willie D. Meador Thomas, granddaughter of George Walton and Margaret Thomas Thomas and great-granddaughter of Rufus King and Alvie Adeline Dunn Thomas and Carroll and Margaret Jane Reid Thomas. Rufus was the fifth child of Perry and Elizabeth Bridges Thomas.  Perry was the third child of James and Mary Standley Thomas.  Elizabeth was the sixth child of Drury and Charity Cohoon Bridges. Carroll was the second child of James, Jr. and Margaret Ethridge Thomas.  James Jr. was the sixth child of James and Mary Standley Thomas.)

Denise Watkins Turner -- Journalist and Author

 

Denise Turner

Denise Dunn Watkins Turner was born on August 2, 1947 in Cairo, Illinois, the daughter of Robert James Watkins and Helen Grace Dunn.  Her great-great-grandfather was Edwin C. Thomas, who was a native of Trigg County, Kentucky. 

Denise was the third generation of family to have lived in Cairo. She was reared and attended schools in Cairo and graduated as valedictorian of her class at Cairo High School in 1965. Denise was a lifelong St. Louis Cardinal Baseball fan. During high school, she was the president of the Julian Javier Fan Club and, because of this, she met the renowned Javier and other 1963 Cardinals, including Stan Musial and Bill White.

 She went on to attend Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois where she graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in fashion merchandising.

On December 22, 1967, Denise married Revis Eugene Turner, a native of Illinois.  They became the parents of two children, Rebecca Jill Turner, born in 1977 and Stephen Robert Turner, born in 1985. The family settled in Twin Lakes, Idaho where Denise was employed as a writer with the Twin Lakes Times-News newspaper. Prior to moving to Idaho, Denise had worked at varied positions such as a traveling lecturer, toy and book department manager and community college writing teacher.

It was when her husband accepted a position with a Twin Falls church, that Denise started her association with The Times-News as a freelance writer, covering local news. After several months, she was hired in 1989 to create "Chat," a weekly insert of feature content. She became assistant features editor in early 1993.

She went on to write a weekly columns on life and family which enlivened the newspaper's pages for more than a decade. Her most remembered article was about when she dropped a hymnbook from the Methodist church balcony during a Sunday morning service which earned her the nickname “Hymnabomber” and ribbing from people all over town.  This incident and other jokes at her expense all showed up in her columns.

Turner edited the newspaper's Religion and Food & Home sections and its TV Weekly tab. She trained freelance writers, led the newspaper to national first-place honors for small newspapers' religion sections in 2001, and won industry awards for her own feature and column writing. The Times-News honored Turner as Employee of the Year in 1998. She received The Harold Schachern Award for Best Religion Pages 2001 from the Religion Newswriters Association; and was recipient of several journalism awards, including the Society of Professional Journalists and the Idaho Press Club.

Denise was an accomplished author of two books, "Home Sweet Fishbowl" and "Scuff Marks on the Ceiling".  She was a contributing author to numerous books, including "Chicken Soup for the Baseball Fan's Soul".  In addition to her newspaper work she authored several freelance magazine articles.

Denise died at the age of 57, on Wednesday, January, 26, 2005, at her home following a two-year battle with cancer.  She was buried in the Sunset Memorial Park Cemetery in Twin Falls.

Denise Turner Tombstone

LINEAGE:  (Denise Watkins Turner is the daughter of Robert James and Helen Grace Dunn Watkins, granddaughter of John Edward and Grace Jane Roberts Dunn and great-granddaughter of George Washington and Margaret Alice Thomas Dunn.  Margaret is the daughter of Edwin C. and Amanda C. Brandon Thomas.  Edwin is the first child of James, Jr. and Margaret Ethridge Thomas.  James, Jr. is the sixth child of James and Mary Standley Thomas.)

Christopher Thomas Carr -- Victim of Grain Bin Tragedy

 

Christopher Thomas Carr was born on September 5, 1964 in Trigg County, Kentucky.  He was the third child born to Johnny Douglas Carr and Marion Kay Thomas.  His father, Johnny Carr was a native Trigg Countian, born on July 29, 1942.  He was a Baptist minister in the Trigg, Caldwell and Lyon Association and also worked as a timber man.  His mother, Kay Thomas Carr, had deep roots in the Thomas-Bridges family. She was born on June 5, 1942 in Trigg County and was the seventh of nine children born to Oscar Earl Thomas and Willie Mae Adams. Christopher’s two siblings were a younger brother, Gregory Douglas Carr, who died at childbirth on June 20, 1962 and a younger sister, Audrey Antoinette Carr who was born on July 7, 1963.

In the fall of 1977, Chris was thirteen years old and was a seventh grade student at Trigg County Middle School.  Nineteen Seventy Seven was a year of great excitement for his home county. Local residents began a tradition that year when they organized the First Annual Trigg County Country Ham Festival. The three-day festival was held on October 20-22 and was highlighted each day with main attractions around the courthouse square. The excitement of the festival, however, was dampened with a terrible tragedy.

Around 5:30 p.m. on Thursday evening, October 20, Chris Carr and several companions were playing around a grain bin on a farm in the Donaldson Community. The boys were inside the bin when an automatic auger came on.  This lowered the grain level in the bin and Chris was accidently buried under about five feet of grain, resulting in his death. His companions managed to escape the bin without any injuries.  The cause of death was suffocation caused by being underneath the grain. 

Chris was buried in the Peyton Thomas Cemetery in the Donaldson Creek area of Trigg County.  He was buried next to his brother Gregory Douglas Carr who died at birth.  Chris and Greg share a tombstone with an inscription that reads “Our babies are resting in the arms of Jesus”.

Tombstone of Christopher and Gregory Carr

LINEAGE:  (Christopher Thomas Carr was the son of Johnny Douglas and Marion Kay Thomas Carr.  Marion Kay was the daughter of Oscar Earl and Willie Mae Adams Thomas.  Oscar was the son of Richard Ellis and Nannie Hendricks Thomas and the grandson of Carroll and Margaret Jane Reid Thomas.  Carroll was the second child of James, Jr., and Margaret Ethridge Thomas.  James, Jr. was the sixth child of James and Mary Standley Thomas. Willie Mae Adams was the daughter of John Quincy and Suphronia Adeline Williams Adams.  John Quincy was the son of John Wylie and Martha Jane Coleman Adams and the grandson of Alfred Boyd and Alpha Thomas Coleman.  Alpha was the second child of Perry and Elizabeth Bridges Thomas.  Perry was the third child of James and Mary Standley Thomas.  Elizabeth was the sixth child of Drury and Charity Cohoon Bridges.)

Rumsey Holt "Pete" Alexander -- Cadiz Business Owner

 

Pete Alexander in front of his service station in downtown Cadiz, Kentucky

 

Rumsey Holt “Pete” Alexander was born on March 13, 1915 in the Siloam community of Trigg County, Kentucky, the son of Raymond and Madie Rhea Noel Alexander. He attended school in Trigg County and graduated from the Cadiz High School in 1934. Prior to WWII Pete and his mother operated a restaurant known as “Pete’s Café” located in downtown Cadiz at the corner of Marion and Main streets.

Pete was the first individual to be drafted from Trigg County for WWII.  Although there were 30 names on the draft board rolls before his name, they were all volunteers, making Pete, who was number 31, the official first draftee.

Pete entered service at Evansville, Indiana and his military qualifications stated he was an “expert sub Mg Cal 45 Marksman M-1 Rifle 43”.  He departed the US on March 23, 1944 and served in the European-African-Middle-Eastern Theater.  His battles and campaigns included Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes and Central Europe. Pete returned to the US on November 4, 1945.

On April 4, 1949, he married Virginia Dare Thomas.  He and Virginia lived in Cadiz, Kentucky their entire lives. He was the owner and operator of Pete’s Service Station, a well known business in Cadiz.

**Pete’s Service Station was a downtown Cadiz icon for more than forty years. Its location at the corner of Court and Main Streets goes back to the founding of Cadiz in the 1820’s. 

Pete’s Service Station was so much more than a place to purchase gasoline, get an oil change, have your car greased or to get a tire repaired. It was a throwback to an earlier time---the antithesis of the brightly lit and spotless modern service station. While most of his competitors were using modern electronic credit card processing equipment, Pete continued to fill out credit card charge slips by hand. People of all walks of life cycled in and out of Pete’s all day long to hear the latest gossip or local news. Some would make purchases but most made stopping there for a time part of their routine. During the winter, they’d gather around the old coal stove but in the summer, they’d sit on the long wooden bench outside facing the courthouse and pontificate on topics of the day. 

About ten o’clock every weekday morning, a diverse group of men would gather at Pete’s to “pull Cokes.” Included were bankers and lawyers in suits, butchers in their aprons, merchants and postal workers. Beforehand, Pete had pulled out a drawer in his old rolltop desk in which each participant would drop a dollar bill and would then buy a six-ounce Coca Cola from the vending machine.  One by one, each participant would announce where his Coke bottle was manufactured (in those days, it was on the bottom of each bottle.) The person with the Coke whose bottle was made the most distant from Cadiz would win the pot in the drawer. Sometimes, it would require the group to consult the U.S. map on Pete’s wall. 

On February 4, 1991 forty years to the day after he opened his service station, Pete Alexander retired. 

Pete died on July 18, 2001 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky and was buried in the East End Cemetery in Cadiz, along with his wife, Virginia.

**Additional information on Pete’s Service Station by Dan Thomas from the Trigg County Historical Society’s  display in 2019 on Cadiz Businesses at the Trigg County Museum.

Pete Alexander Grave Marker

LINEAGE: (Pete Alexander was the husband of Virginia Dare Thomas.  Virginia was the daughter of Eura Wesley and Lucy Pearl Lawrence Thomas, the granddaughter of Wesley Gunn and Eliza L. Henderson Thomas and the great-granddaughter of Stanley and Emily Ann Light Thomas.  Stanley was the second child of Starkie and Mary Bridges Thomas.  Starkie was the fourth child of James and Mary Standley Thomas.  Mary was the seventh child of Drury and Charity Cohoon Bridges.)