With the 2021 Juneteenth celebration approaching in just over a week, the St. Paul United Methodist Church and the Juneteenth Celebration Committee have announce the Grand Marshals for this year’s event. Marsha Broadus, Pastor Karen Jones, Rev. Larry Moffet, and Rev. Lue Lockridge-Lane were selected because each have made significant contributions to the community and churches.

“All are deserving of this special recognition as we celebrate this significant, historical time in the life of this country,” said Tim Jackman, one of the celebration’s organizers. 

Marsha Broadus

Marsha Broadus, the daughter of the late William and Fannie Broadus, was raised in Howard County. She attended first through fourth grades at Lincoln Public School and graduated from Fayette High School in 1974. From there she went on to work at State Farm Insurance Company for three years. She later decided to become a nurse and became an LPN in 1980. She loved nursing so much that she began her studies as an RN at Central Methodist College (now University), and graduated with an associate degree in 1986.

In June 2013, she became a staff nurse at Howard County Public Health Department, and after working there for more than seven years, became the Administrator on October 13, 2020. She also works part-time as a Community Nurse for Endless Options.

Marsha is a member of Second Baptist Church, where she serves as the Treasury Secretary and, also as a member of the Trustee Board.  

Marsha also serves as treasurer for the Central Missouri Clergy Coalition, president of Howard County Health and Wellness Council, membership chair of the Lincoln Public School Committee, and is a board member for the Mid-Missouri Regional Planning Commission.

In her “free” time she makes and displays gift baskets for sale at a booth at Abbeys in Glasgow, and, also sells fresh squeezed lemonade and smoothies from her vendor truck at events in Howard County as well as multiple other communities. 

Pastor Karen and 

John Jones

Karen was born in an army hospital in Tacoma, Washington, and, being an “army brat” she has no hometown. Growing up included time in Washington State, Alabama, Texas, Germany, and Florida. By virtue of marrying a native Missourian, she has lived in Missouri most of her adult life and is quite content in the Midwest.  

Karen has been active in several Christian traditions and is now a lay preacher in the United Methodist tradition. She has pastored the St. Paul UMC congregation here in Fayette for the last five years. She is past president of the local Ministerial Alliance. She is also a Biblical storyteller and a retired educator, having worked in various educational and literacy-related jobs including public school special education, the state library, Lincoln University in Jefferson City, adult education, and teaching GED preparation at Renz women’s prison. She and her husband, John, have a son and a daughter with a granddaughter living in Southern California.

John was born in 1939 in a farmhouse near Macon because it was spring thaw and the mud was too deep for his parents to get to the hospital. He is a graduate of Macon High School, Hannibal-LaGrange Junior College, the University of Missouri-Columbia, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and the University of Florida. He was a high school science teacher and taught teacher-preparation courses at the college level.

For most of his career he worked for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and for the Missouri State Teachers Association. Both jobs included service as a lobbyist concerning education finance and policy. Retiring from that, he spent 15 years raising registered Black Angus cattle near Jamestown, Missouri.

He has been active in churches of several denominations and has been both a Baptist deacon and a Methodist lay speaker.

Rev. Larry Moffet

Rev. Larry (Lawrence) Moffet served St. Paul United Methodist Church in Fayette and Lewis Chapel Church in Glasgow as pastor from 1981-1984 during his time as a graduate student at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City.

 Rev. Larry credits the people of St. Paul and Lewis Chapel with helping him develop a deep understanding of how community-development and relationship-building are the heart of life and faith. He is grateful for all the ways the congregations nurtured him into the pastoral role. 

Under Rev. Larry’s vision and leadership, he was instrumental in getting the Black section of the Fayette City Cemetery, which had been neglected for years, cleared and mowed, and placed under perpetual care like the remaining portion of the cemetery.

He also served congregations in Omaha and Lincoln before retiring and moving to Kansas City in 2019. 

Larry grew up just outside of St. Joseph. After college he became the editor, publisher, and eventually the owner of a weekly newspaper in Minden, Nebraska.  

During and since his years as a pastor in Nebraska he was a frequent worshiper at St. Paul, especially on celebratory Sundays such as church anniversaries, Rally Days, and Juneteenth. This year he has assisted St. Paul’s Pastor Karen Jones in leading a Baptism-Confirmation Class.

During his time as pastor, St. Paul initiated a community-wide cemetery cleanup, launched a Young Men’s Chorus, and re-instituted Church Anniversary celebrations as a way of gathering members of the community together.

Among many spiritual gifts he’s received from members of St. Paul and Lewis Chapel, Larry treasures the Black Church’s genius for developing soul-deep heart-to-heart connections, along with the ability to celebrate even in the face of injustice, while living out the faith message of grace, equity, and unity. 

Rev. Lue 

Lockridge-Lane

Lue was born and raised in Hayti, a small town in southeast Missouri. She relocated to Fayette to attend Central Methodist where she obtained her B.S. in Business Administration in 1979.

She also worked part-time for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farmers Home Administration (now “Rural Development”) as a stay-in-school clerk during the summer of 1977 until her graduation, and then accepted full-time employment with the agency as an Economic Emergency Clerk in 1979 in New Madrid, Missouri. In 1981, she moved back to Fayette to be closer to the love of her life, Walter Lane, whom she later married, and to accept a promotion within USDA in the State Office in Columbia. They have three children, Dametrick, Walter III, and Lauraetta. Lue retired from USDA in 2015 after 38 years of service.

Lue joined Second Baptist Church in Fayette under the leadership of the late Rev. Horace W. Hopkins, Jr. She was licensed to preach under Rev. Hopkins in 2004. Over the years she served as Sunday school director and teacher, Women Missionary Union (WMU) secretary, and youth director. She sang in the choir, served on the Trustee’s board, and filled in other areas at the church as needed. She also served the Mt. Zion Baptist District Association as youth director for nine years and later at the WMU president for seven years.

She is currently a member and associate minister at Lewis Chapel Community Church (LCCC) in Glasgow, where she teaches Bible study each week and preaches on the second and fourth Sundays. She was ordained in 2014 by Rev. Don White, then pastor of LCCC.