Herbert J. “Joe” Edgington, March 4. 2010
04/02/2010COLUMBIA, Mo.
Herbert J. “Joe” Edgington, 79, who served the former North Arkansas Conference as a United Methodist elder, passed away on March 4, 2010, at Boone County Hospital in Columbia, Mo. He had suffered a long illness of congestive heart failure and diabetes.
Edgington was born on Dec. 21, 1930, in rural Dade County near Everton, Mo., the second son of Charles and Tella Edgington, both who preceded him in death.
After graduating from Southwest Missouri State College, he began a 35-year teaching career at Hartville and Everton High Schools. He then returned to his beloved Southwest Missouri State College, to become an assistant basketball coach and freshman basketball coach. He also taught biology and science.
He later received his M.A. and Ed.D. degrees from the University of Southern California.
He taught at the elementary and middle school levels, and served as a principal at both levels, an assistant superintendent and superintendent. Edgington’s extensive experience in education, also included Colorado Department of Education, a university professorship and private school development at the University of Miami, and superintendent of schools for the Arabian American Oil Company in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
A lifelong United Methodist, Edgington accepted a call to preach at age 56.
He earned his master of divinity degree while in the former North Arkansas Conference of the church, where he spent 11 years in full-time ministry.
Ill health precipitated an early retirement to his native Missouri, where he has served the Avilla and Monett Liberty and New Liberty Churches since 1998. At the time of his death, he was pastoring the two Monett churches in a retired capacity.
Edgington is survived by his wife, Della, who he gives credit for her assistance in both seminary and local pastorates; two daughters by a previous marriage, Teri and her husband, Michael Beattie, of Divide, Colo. amd Cindy Smelser of Woodland Park, Colo.
Survivors also include daughter, Autumn, of Springfield, Mo., four granddaughters; two great-grandsons, Tyler and Brayden Woods, of Colorado Springs, Colo.; and great-granddaughter, Aleea Raelynn Smelser, of Woodland Park, Colo.
Funeral arrangements are under the direction of the Weng Funeral Home in Jasper, Mo. A funeral service was held March 10 at Liberty United Methodist Church, northeast of Monett. Burial followed in Ray Spring Cemetery, south of Everton.
The family has requested, in lieu of flowers, that contributions be made to aide handicapped children at Camp Barnabas, 901 Private Road 2060, Pierce City, Mo., 65723.
