Alexine Gibson, retired employee of the Georgia Baptist Convention Executive Committee, died on May 8 in Monroe. Gibson was a native of Mississippi and came to Georgia to serve as children’s minister at First Church, Decatur. Following her service she became Sunbeam director for the Woman’s Missionary Union of Georgia. The last years of her service to the Georgia Baptist Convention was as administrative assistant to Searcy Garrison. Gibson had willed her body to Emory Medical Center and requested that no memorial service be held.

 

John C. Hamrick died April 24 at Wellstar Cobb Hospital of respiratory failure. He was 78.

A native of Cartersville, Hamrick served in the Pacific theater of WWII before attending Mercer University in Macon.

A graduate of Southwestern Seminary, Hamrick pastored churches in Texas and Georgia including First Kennesaw, Jackson Hill Church in Atlanta, and Bethel Church in Smyrna.

He is survived by his wife, Martha; two sons, Stephen Hamrick of Marietta and John Hamrick of LaGrange; a sister, Jackie Barr of Chamblee; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

 

Gary Ross Sims, a former youth minister and pastor to several Georgia churches, died May 2 of complications from surgery at Emory Dunwoody Medical Center. He was 53.

Sims pursued an early career as a trumpet player, spending a year touring with the contemporary Christian group Truth before deciding to enter the minstry in the 1970’s.

After graduating from Southwestern Seminary, Sims worked in various Texas churches before returning to Georgia in 1985 to become youth minister at Roswell Street Church in Marietta. It was while at Roswell Street that Sims began broadcasting high school football games for WFOM-AM (1230) radio, something he would continue to do for 15 years.

In 1990 Sims became associate pastor at Second Baptist Church in Griffin and from 1993 to 1996 served as pastor of New Salem Church in Kennesaw.

Survivors include his mother, Frances, and a son, Jacob Sims.