Greenwood veterinarian makes
unusual delivery: friend’s baby

July 13, 2006

By JOANIE BAKER
Index-Journal staff writer

She’s delivered foals in a barn and puppies in an office.
But, this month, Kimberli Yonce-Timmerman made a delivery in her friend’s bathroom that she never expected to make in her veterinary career.
Somewhere between the sink and the bathtub, Yonce-Timmerman, of Greenwood, handed friend Joanna Eubanks a 6-pound, 14-ounce bundle that, after several seconds, did not bark or meow. Aidan Eubanks cried.
“We were really good friends before, but now we’re really good friends,” Joanna said of her son’s unexpected delivery.

A little early 6 p.m., July 3
Aidan was due July 12. So after a day of swimming with Yonce-Timmerman, Joanna didn’t think anything of some lower back pain. After all, she had been carrying 15-month-old son Jacob around all day, and, at nine months pregnant, that can be difficult, even for a runner such as Joanna. But the mother said the pain didn’t stay in her back for long.

It’s not time ... it is time 10 p.m.
Five minutes. Two minutes. Seven minutes. The contractions that Joanna started having were so irregular and light that she decided to lie down and rest. Her husband, Sam, called Yonce-Timmerman to make sure his wife was OK. But after sitting with Joanna for a while, the doctor decided the contractions were just Braxton Hicks, the same pre-term contractions she experienced for some time before delivering her own daughter, Paige, only five months ago.
As soon as Yonce-Timmerman returned to her house, the phone rang. The vet said she usually would think Sam, a kidder, wasn’t serious. But, this time when he asked her to come back, she knew better.
“I could just tell in his voice and I could hear Joanna screaming in the background,” said Yonce-Timmerman, who said she can only remember quickly finding her shoes and, the next thing she knew, she was back at the Eubankses’ home.
“No sooner did I hang up the phone did Joanna say she’d had a contraction,” Sam said.
Sam called 911 and was asked by the operator how far along his wife’s pregnancy was.
“I said, “Don’t you think that’s irrelevant; he’s coming out on our bathroom floor?’” he recalled.

Changing roles 10:50 p.m.
While Jacob slept soundly in his bed, his mother screamed as his new baby began to crown.
Pushing all her worries to the back of her mind, Yonce-Timmerman quickly went from friend to doctor.
“When something like that happens, I do what needs to be done and don’t think about it until afterwards,” she said. “In my mind, I switched over to that emergency zone.”
Ten minutes and one push later, Aidan, whose name means fiery, was born on the bathroom floor.
Emergency Medical Service workers arrived and helped cut the umbilical cord before taking Joanna and her new son to the hospital.
Despite Yonce-Timmerman’s fears of Joanna bleeding and the baby not being all right, Joanna said she hopes her next birth goes the same way.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Joanna said. “It was fast and it was over with.”
Sam still has a difficult time convincing people of his son’s unusual entry into the world.
But once people are convinced of Aidan’s arrival, Sam said they only shake their heads.
“They think it’s pretty par for the course because we live pretty wild anyway,” he said.

Area churches not likely to face gay clergy issue

July 13, 2006

By BOBBY HARRELL
Index-Journal staff writer

For many mainline Christian leaders in the area, the prospect of a gay clergy man or woman standing in the pulpit on Sunday is a non-issue.
Decisions within the Presbyterian (U.S.A.) and Episcopal churches making gay clergy more acceptable have stirred discussion among people within different Christian denominations.
Ripples are evident from decisions made in June at the PCUSA’s General Assembly and the Episcopal National Convention.
PCUSA became more lenient toward gay clergy, in that decisions to accept and ordain gay ministers could be left up to individual churches and their presbyteries. The Episcopal church has had a gay bishop since 2003.
Many issues, including gay clergy, are dividing mainstream Protestantism in the United States, said Richard E. Burnett, associate professor of systematic theology at Erskine Theological Seminary.
“Protestants are finding that they have more in common with each other in other denominations than with people in their own denomination,” Burnett said.
The division in mainline Protestantism will continue to widen as the years progress, he said.
Burnett, a PCUSA member, thinks the recent decisions regarding gay clergy during the Presbyterian General Assembly undermined the church’s constitution. While the church did not change its constitution to allow gay clergy, it left the option open for local churches to make their own decisions about the issue.
A dozen churches in the “Abbeville Cluster” discussed the changes Tuesday night at the Abbeville Presbyterian Church, Burnett said. Many people are upset about the changes in the PCUSA church.
Burnett teaches many pastors who say members of their congregations are moving to other churches because of the Presbyterian church’s decision.
Several PCUSA churches have slipped away in the past few years, said the Rev. Calvin Draffin, pastor of Due West Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church.
PCUSA has been losing churches for the past 10-15 years. Some have gone to the ARP church, Draffin said. ARP guidelines are clear when it comes to homosexuality: it’s a sin, Draffin said.
The Rev. Barrett Alewine, of St. Mark United Methodist Church in Greenwood, wants to leave the issue of homosexuality up to the different denominations to decide.
“Not all United Methodists are of one mind,” Alewine said.
The Rev. Jeff Lethco, pastor of North Side Baptist Church in Greenwood, thinks the homosexual lifestyle isn’t in keeping with God’s best intentions for mankind.
“It’s not what is best for anybody,” he said.
The church has the responsibility to love all people, but it needs to become what God wants it to become, Lethco said. Those who pursue an active homosexual lifestyle shouldn’t be qualified to preside over a congregation, he said.
The Rev. Dave Thompson, of Eastside Baptist Church in Greenwood, refers to the Bible to answer the question of gay clergy in his church. The Book of Timothy says that for the office of bishop, the person would have to be the husband of one wife.
“I believe we should all hold to what the Bible says,” Thompson said.
The Rev. Alice Ridgell is campus pastor at the Thornwell Home for Children and pastor at the Hartness-Thornwell Presbyterian Church in Clinton. She is deeply saddened by the acceptance of gay clergy in the Presbyterian church. She thinks there are issues just as important as gay clergy that haven’t been addressed properly, such as social injustice, racial inequality and feeding the hungry.
PCUSA members have been debating homosexuality for 25 years, Burnett said.
“This isn’t going to go away,” he said.

Opinion

America’s goodness gives nation strength to last

July 13, 2006

The words were spoken more than a century and a half ago, still they are as appropriate today as they were then, maybe even more so. When Dr. George Wilson spoke them again in a recent sermon at Greenwood’s First Presbyterian Church, they rang loud and clear to a nation in flux.
They were included in a comprehensive analysis of America and its people as seen by Alexis de Tocqueville, a French historian and political philosopher. He spent time in 1831-32 studying political and social institutions in the United States and became famous for his book, “Democracy in America.”

HE HAD MANY OBSERVATIONS and predictions about America. These words, though, fit the times better than others. “America is great,” he said, “because it is good. When it ceases to be good, it will cease to be great.”
Was this man prophetic? Is the “goodness” of America being eroded by a variety of pressures on morality and religion? Is it devouring itself from within?
Maybe! Maybe not! One thing’s for sure. There is enough evidence to give thinking people pause for a serious retrospective look at changing values and the effects on the “good” that de Tocqueville noted and Dr. Wilson reiterated.

Obituaries

Clara Powell Grimes

CALHOUN FALLS — Mrs. Clara Powell Grimes, 94, widow of Col. John L. Grimes, died July 11, 2006 at McCormick Health Care.
Born in Abbeville County, Mrs. Grimes was the daughter of the late James William Powell and Lucinda Bowick Powell. She was a longtime member of Northside Baptist Church in Calhoun Falls, and also the American Legion Auxiliary and the Order of the Eastern Star.
Survivors include 2 sons: Billy Ray Shaw and spouse Dean of Tegacay, SC and Tolly M. Shaw and spouse Willie of Calhoun Falls; 5 grand-children; 12 great grand-children; 3 great great grandchildren; and brother Herman Powell of Calhoun Falls.
Funeral services will be held on Friday, July 14 at 1:00 PM at Northside Baptist Church in Calhoun Falls. Interment will follow at Forest Lawn Memory Gardens in Abbeville. The family will receive friends on Thursday, July 13 from 6-8 PM at Calhoun Falls Funeral Home.
Calhoun Falls Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements for Clara Powell Grimes.
PAID OBITUARY

Terry Tinsley

HODGES — James Terrell “Terry” Tinsley, 40, of 5626 Highway 178 N., died Wednesday, July 12, 2006 at the Hospice House.
Born in Greenwood, he was a son of Ann Horne Havird and the late Eldred S. “Sonny” Tinsley III. He was a graduate of Greenwood High School and was formerly employed with J.C. Penney in Augusta. He was a member of Harris Baptist Church.
Survivors include his mother of Hodges; two brothers, Chip Tinsley and Tony Sleister, both of Hodges; a stepbrother, Jeff Havird of Hodges.
A memorial service is 4 p.m. Friday at Harley Funeral Home, officiated by the Rev. Jeff Lethco. Visitation is 2:30-4 Friday at the funeral home.
The family is at the home of his mother, 5624 Highway 178 N.
Memorials may be made to HospiceCare of the Piedmont, 408 W. Alexander Ave., Greenwood, SC 29646.
Harley Funeral Home is in charge.
Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.harleyfuneralhome.com

CORRECTION

For the obituary of Jimmy Davis, published June 27, there was an error in the information given to The Index-Journal. Memorials to the American Diabetes Association should be sent to 16-A Brozzini Court, Greenville, SC 29615.