James Newman, the longtime pastor at First Baptist Church of Bayfield, died on Monday. He was a volunteer chaplain for the Upper Pine River Fire Protection District for 20 years, serving both victims of accidents and fires, as well as Upper Pine staff.
“This man was an incredible gift to the fire district and the community,” Upper Pine wrote on its Facebook page. “A colorful character, always with a joke, and a humble man. Our condolences to his family and wife Louise.”
Newman, 87, has been volunteering his time for more than 70 years, starting as a Boy Scout in Texas City, Texas.
There, he was involved in a horrible accident in 1947 when ships loaded with ammonium nitrate exploded, killing 600 people and injuring another 2,000. There were few police and firefighters on hand, so he and other Boy Scouts spent a week helping collect body parts, then he volunteered to work in the morgue.
“That gave me a very serious outlook on life,” he said in a video on Upper Pine’s website. From that experience, he felt called to serve in a more meaningful way, becoming active in his church in Dallas, attending college and becoming a pastor.
He served as a pastor for three years in an oilfield in Venezuela, then had to return home when he contracted a tropical disease.
He retired to Bayfield after working as a pastor in Dallas, but that didn’t last long, and he became the pastor at First Baptist Church in Bayfield, along with serving as Upper Pine’s chaplain, earning the nickname “Chappy.”
He frequently wrote columns for the Pine River Times for the Independence Day and Christmas issues.
Newman told a gathering of Upper Pine employees last year that he never served others to seek recognition but it was nice when it has come along.
