Our People: Keeping busy through ministry

"Retirement" is not a word you see in the Bible.

So says Brian Arnold, who at 75 and despite his retirement from 43 years in public education about 10 years ago, maintains a heavy schedule of church and community service.

He also maintains a small herd of cattle.

Arnold, along with his wife Alvonna, another retired teacher, provides outreach, advising and counseling services through the First Baptist Church and the Portales Ministerial Alliance. They are both active in the ministry alliance's Red Kettle program, which collects money around the holidays that is used to help people pay utility bills in emergency situations.

Brian and Alvonna sat down with The News on Tuesday. Below are The News' questions and Brian Arnold's responses, with occasional help from Alvonna.

Q. You screen people who apply for help with utility bills from the Red Kettle program. Do you find that rewarding?

A. Very rewarding. We call ourselves Christians, and the Bible points directly to helping people in emergencies. It has always been important to us.

We use a tracker program that is also used by the United Way, so we know who has received help, and how much and from where. We want to make sure there is an emergency, and we are pretty liberal about what that emergency might be.

When we do give them help, we also find out how they got into this mess, and we try to give them guidance on how they should spend their money. We tell them that paying their water and utility bills has got to come first. We look at their finances and offer them training, not extensive but basic. We offer to pray with them about where they are, especially if they have had a death in the family, which can create an emergency. We invite them to find a church, a church home. We don't care which denomination.

Q. Do you also work with people in other ways?

A. We've had many young Air Force Airmen couples who have come to Cannon with their families. We've helped them with their babies, helped them with their careers. That has been another wonderful part of enjoying our communities.

We meet many through the church, and we invite them to our homes for meals.

For many of the Airmen, Cannon is their first assignment out of training. It's interesting when their mom and dad may live in Michigan or even Germany. We can give them an experience like being with Mom and Dad. This is another thing we enjoy.

Alvonna also works with Pregnancy Resource Center. Great passion of hers. Super good thing, I'm proud of her. Alvonna adds: We work with unplanned pregnancies. We come with compassion, not with judgment, but to bring hope. We also offer parenting classes. Helps young parents, but not always just the young.

Q. What do you do for fun?

A. We love to visit our granddaughters and their activities, whether it's ball or band. We're big band followers.

Working cattle is very relaxing to me. If you want to find me in a happy place it would working with cattle. There are times when it's not so happy, but by and large I get tremendous enjoyment from that.

We like to travel. We've been on a number of overseas mission trips. Took us to a lot of different places.

Alvonna adds: Another thing he (Brian) enjoys is woodworking. He built this table (a long, polished table with inlays in the family dining room).

Brian again: It's actually two tables. We like to play cards. We designed it to be big enough to seat most of our family, but it would be too long to play cards, so we made two tables out of it.

The table was a pretty good project and Alvonna was right there with me every step of the way.

Q. So how large is that family?

A. We have three sons, who have given us five granddaughters and one great-granddaughter.

Q. And where are they living.

A. One son lives on a farm between Portales and Clovis. One lives in Hobbs and the other in Midland, Texas.

Q. What do you enjoy about raising cattle?

A. They keep me from being sedentary. I wake up every morning knowing I'll be working with the herd. I enjoy being with my cattle. I enjoy learning them and their problems and their successes. I enjoy cow and calf activity, and the science. Young cattle that are calving for the first time can have some dynamic problems in trying to give birth. There's a lot to learn about that, which causes me to be intrigued. That's the science.

Q. What do you think retirement should be?

A. You don't find "retirement" in the Bible. We believe our ministry should be with us until we leave this planet. We have this interesting dynamic of retirement and our age. We have to be a little more cautious than we've ever been before. For instance, with our cattle. We have simplified it as much as we possibly can. Because of the danger level and because we realize we are not young and retired. We need to avoid situations where we can be injured or hurt. And we have some ongoing health issues we must take care of.

Q. Do you miss teaching or being in education?

A. Oh yeah. I have an absolute love for working with children. And I think I always will have. This, too, I believe is a calling. There was never a day when I woke up wishing I didn't have to go to work.

Q. What did you teach?

A. For the first 16 years I taught elementary school, then I became principal, then a central office administrator, and then I retired. After that I was called to be an administrator in Muleshoe for 18 years. For the last 13 years in Muleshoe, I was director of special education. I enjoyed working with parents and students who were struggling in school and needed some answers. I loved working to try to provide answers for them.

Q. Have you worked with other teachers?

A. I've trained a million student teachers. It's a great way to give basic, on the ground training before they inherit a full classroom full of children. Alvonna adds: The thing they struggled with the most is not conveying the curriculum, but managing the classroom.

Q. Have lived in Portales all of your life?

A. I grew up in Tucumcari. After I graduated, I went to Eastern New Mexico University. I married Alvonna just before I graduated, and she had another year to finish her college degree, so we decided to stay here another year, and here we are 53 years later.