‘Small but mighty’

LAUREL HILL — On April 24, 1898, Rev. Erasmus Ellerbe Ervin, then pastor of First Presbyterian in DeFuniak Springs, organized the Laurel Hill Presbyterian Church with 11 charter members. It was the flourishing railroad town’s second church, a Baptist congregation having been organized the year before Rev. Wilson’s visit.

For the past 120 years, congregations big and small have gathered at Laurel Hill Presbyterian to worship, mourn, celebrate, sing, study and serve their community. At a special 11 a.m. worship service on April 29, the church will celebrate its first century-and-a-fifth.

The Laurel Hill Presbyterian Church, led since 2007 by the Rev. Mark Broadhead, continues to serve the people of Okaloosa County’s oldest municipality and surrounding areas.

“I call it the little church with the big heart,” Rev. Broadhead said. “It’s small but mighty.”

Some other highlights from the church's history include the following:

•The church, with their Baptist brethren in Christ, first met in the Masonic Hall. Members soon began constructing a sanctuary on Fourth Street, land

•The new church building opened for worship in 1901, even as the $1,000 construction project was wrapping up, and remains Okaloosa County’s oldest continuously used place of worship.

•Sunday services are still held beneath the same high cathedral ceiling in the simple 30-foot by 40-foot sanctuary. Around 1925, a two-room Sunday school addition was added to the rear of the church. One of the rooms was divided into two rooms during renovations in 1956.

•A small portable pump organ purchased in the 1920s will be featured during the April 28 120th anniversary worship celebration.

•Church members acquired a pipe organ — the only one in northern Okaloosa County — from Mississippi College in 1995. The smaller Sunday school room was again partitioned into a pipe chamber, housing the Moeller Organ’s 245 pipes.

•In 2013, the wall dividing the two rear rooms was removed, opening up the space as a fellowship hall and gathering spot for church meetings, suppers and public events, such as the sweets and treats that follow the church’s annual December Living Nativity. A community crafters group will soon begin meeting in the hall.

WHAT: 120th anniversary worship service

WHEN: 11 a.m. Sunday, April 29

WHERE: Laurel Hill Presbyterian Church, 8115 Fourth Street

NOTES: The Rev. Mark Broadhead, pastor, with guest preacher the Rev. Dr. Roy Martin, General Presbyter, Presbytery of Florida. Worship service followed by dinner on the grounds.

NOTABLES WHO ATTENDED LAUREL HILL PRESBYTERIAN

•Earl Campbell, a trombonist in the first Okaloosa School Band, predecessor of the Crestview High School Big Red Machine

•Ernest Willie Campbell, former Masonic Grand Master of the State of Florida

•Ferrin Campbell Sr., former Okaloosa County Sheriff and State Representative

•Ferrin Campbell Jr., former Laurel Hill mayor

•Lt. Gen. Robb Chedister, former Eglin AFB commander

•"Cooter" Douglas, former noted radio personality

•Dr. Mabel Jean Morrison, former educator and philanthropist

•John Monroe Summerlin, first sheriff of Okaloosa County

•Mamie and Pearl Tyner, local philanthropists

•McDonald Campbell, 103 years old, is still attending. She's the church matriarch and the first librarian of the current Laurel Hill School.

LAUREL HILL PRESBYTERIAN CELEBRATION

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: ‘Small but mighty’