Renovation turns up unexpected treasure

The recent expansion and renovation at Central Christian Church in Portales turned up an unexpected time capsule of sorts, and an even more unexpected connection with the pastor who blessed it almost 61 years ago.

Don Thomas is the current pastor of the church at 1528 S. Main Ave. in Portales, which had its official grand re-opening earlier this month after a high-tech, energy efficient makeover.

Thomas said early in the remodeling process he realized that the addition of a new lobby and new bathrooms would cover over a cornerstone - more of a plaque, really - that had been placed on the east wall when the building was constructed in the late 1950s.

He asked his contractor if it could be removed for safekeeping. A few hours later, Thomas said, the workers told him they'd found "some stuff" behind it.

That "stuff" turned out to be a small and well-used Bible, a copy of the Portales News-Tribune from May 16, 1958, a church bulletin from that weekend, and other papers including a brief history of the church written by then-pastor Glenn E. Hull, whose phone number back then was RE 6-6964.

I was looking through these treasures in Thomas' office last week when he mentioned he'd recently received a short email from Glenn Hull congratulating the church on its update.

Thomas said he'd never met Hull and didn't know much about his long-ago predecessor.

I couldn't let an opportunity like that go by. I sent an email to the address Thomas had and was delighted with a quick response and arrangement of a Good Friday afternoon phone interview with Hull and his wife.

"Central was my first full-time ministry," Glenn Hull told me from his home in Florissant, Missouri, where he lives with his wife of 62 years, Inez.

"We were newlyweds," Hull said. "We are natives of the state of Illinois, and I was a graduate of what is today Lincoln Christian University. We went to Portales so I could work on a master's degree at Eastern New Mexico University."

"I have a lot of good memories of the time spent there," Inez Hull said. "We were members of that church before Glenn became the minister."

The Hulls were married in Portales in December of 1956. In March of 1957, Hull was asked to fill in for a few months at a church in Clovis that was between pastors, and then, "in August, the pastor of Central Christian moved to California and I was asked if I was interested in that position," he recalled.

"We were living in student housing at Eastern ... Vetville," Hull said. "We moved into the parsonage on Third Street where the old church had been located."

Soon after, construction began on the red brick church most of us remember on South Main.

The broad, fragile pages of the News-Tribune from May 16, 1958 (you forget how large newspapers used to be), reported that a building fund had started in 1945, and "concentrated efforts during the last three years led to the breaking of ground for the new building at the corner of 16th and Main on Nov. 24, 1957."

As the last surviving charter member of Central Christian by then, Miss Beola McMinn had the honor of turning "the first spade full of dirt," according to the book "Roosevelt County History and Heritage."

The items in the recently discovered time capsule were placed there when the cornerstone was laid for the new building on May 18, 1958.

Hull said he recollected the ceremony, but not the specific items.

"If we can go back 60 years...," he said with a laugh.

Although he could not remember who might have owned the worn Bible that spent the last six decades behind a wall, Hull said the individual who had owned it was not what mattered.

"The Bible itself was the church's message," he said.

The Hulls were in Portales until 1963. With two small children and a third on the way, they made the decision to move closer to Glenn's mother in Illinois so their children could know their grandmother.

But they took fond memories of their time in Portales with them, and can still recite many of the family names of folks who were involved in Central Christian during their time there: Allen, Bonner, Coplen, Worley, van Antwerp, Odom, Green, Randolph, Plexico, Breshears, Morgan Catt, Hinderliter, and Hensley, to name a few.

"A farmer named Blankenship who lived at the edge of town ... he would bring us a chicken or stuff from his garden," Glenn Hull remembered. "Often that was our meal."

After the Hulls moved back to the Midwest, Inez said the Blankenship family "would send us a hundred pounds of raw peanuts for Christmas."

Another family - the Tolands - mailed the Hulls cans of El Monterrey enchilada sauce mix.

"We took it to potlucks and people loved it," Inez said.

Glenn Hull will be 86 in May, but said, "You always go back to your first ministry. It brings back lots of good memories."

Don Thomas vows to safeguard those memories and add to them.

"We are keeping all of this," Don Thomas said, holding the Bible, the yellowed newspaper, the pastel bulletins. "The time capsule will be updated. We might put in another Bible, print out our Sunday announcement sheet, put in the story of everything we did. It will all go in a fire safe and be kept here."

Perhaps that time capsule will be found on purpose the next time, but Inez Hull thinks it is no accident that the first one was uncovered when Central got its 21st-century facelift.

"God maybe saw to it that they found it," she said.

Betty Williamson loves to leaf through local history. Reach her at:

[email protected]