Charles W Conn

Funeral services for Charles W. Conn, aged 88 of Cleveland, will be conducted at 10:00 a.m. Saturday, March 22, 2008 at Westmore Church of God in Cleveland. Burial will follow in Sunset Memorial Gardens. Visitation with the family will be Friday, March 21, from 4:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m., at Ralph Buckner Funeral Home in Cleveland. Dr. Conn passed away Tuesday in a Chattanooga hospital. For those friends who prefer non-floral memorial expressions, the family encourages gifts to the Charles W. Conn Memorial Scholarship Fund at Lee University, Cleveland, Tennessee 37311. Dr. Conn was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 20, 1920, the son of the late Albert Cason Conn and Belle Brimer Conn of Atlanta. He was married for fifty-seven years to the late Edna Minor Conn, until her death in 1997. They had twelve children, including two daughters who preceded them in death: Sarah Wesson and Melody Conn. He is survived by seven sons and three daughters: Philip Conn of Lexington, Kentucky; Stephen Conn of Loveland, Ohio; Paul Conn of Cleveland; Raymond Conn of Cincinnati, Ohio; Mark Conn of Dalton, Georgia; Bruce Conn of Rome, Georgia; and Jeff Conn of Nashville, Tennessee; Sharon Hays of Mason, Ohio; Camilla Warren of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Cathy Robbins of Cumming, Georgia. Also surviving are thirty-one grandchildren and forty-one great-grandchildren. Dr. Conn is also survived by one brother, Franklin Conn, and three sisters, Faye Conn, Artie Thomas, and Joyce Askea, all from Atlanta. Dr. Conn was President Emeritus of Lee University, after serving twelve years (1970-82) of Lee College. He was an ordained minister in the Church of God, which denomination he served as pastor, teacher, editor, administrator, and educator since entering the clergy in 1940. He was General Overseer of the Church of God for four years (1966-70) and editor-in-chief of Pathway Press for ten years (1952-62). Conn attended Lee College (then Bible Training School in Sevierville, Tennessee) where he met and married his wife Edna Minor, from Decatur, Alabama, in 1940. Both felt a calling to full-time Christian ministry, and after their marriage they worked in numerous states in evangelism and youth ministry. In 1942, they moved to Missouri, serving for six years as pastor of churches in St. Joseph and Leadwood. He was author of twenty-three books, including “Like A Mighty Army”, the official history of the Church of God which was published in 1956 and has been revised and reissued three times since its initial release. A gifted writer from an early age, he first gained widespread attention within the denomination for his writing. He moved to Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1948 to become editor of “The Lighted Pathway”, a youth-oriented publication, and four years later became editor of the “Evangel”, which was at that time a weekly magazine serving as the “official organ” of the Church of God. During his period as editor, he wrote many insightful and memorable editorials and columns, and developed a reputation throughout the denomination for his balanced and progressive leadership. He was elected to serve on the church’s highest administrative body, the Executive Committee, in 1962, when he began a four-year term as Assistant General Overseer. In 1966, the church tapped him for its top executive position. During the four-year tenure as General Overseer which followed, he supervised the amalagamation into the denomination of the Bethel Church of Indonesia, which today accounts for 2.5 million members. He also directed the construction of a new headquarters building for the international church, moving its offices to the site at Keith and 25th Streets in Cleveland which it occupies today. Conn’s twelve-year presidency of Lee College was at that time the longest in the institution’s history. During the years of his leadership, the school set new enrollment records, built a married students apartment complex (Carroll Courts) and an auditorium, which was named the Charles W. Conn Center by the college board of directors in 1978, and made huge strides toward a broad range of academic and civic goals. A Cleveland resident for sixty years, Dr. Conn was a member of the Westmore Church of God. He is a former member of Cleveland Rotary Club. After his retirement from full-time ministerial appointment in 1984, Conn was named President Emeritus by the Lee University Board of Directors. He has also served throughout his later years as official historian for the Church of God.