Assembly of God Church’s series conclusion

Hannah Gross
NLJ Correspondent 
With Leonard Cash, historian
 
In this week’s installment of “History on Main,” Leonard Cash concludes his series on the Newcastle Assembly of God Church. Last week, we left off with the Rev. Howard Cummings and his family moving to Huron, South Dakota, after a growing 10 years as pastor in Newcastle. 
According to the July 28, 1966, edition of the News Letter Journal, the Rev. Steve Rexroat from Phillipsburg, Kansas, became the new pastor. He and his wife were both graduates of Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. After graduation, they took over the public relations department of the school. He was also a missionary intern in Hawaii. They and their 4-month-old son were arriving on Aug. 10. Rexroat continued the “Heart to Heart Talks” on KASL radio that Cummings started. 
Evidently, Rexroat didn’t stay in town very long because by Feb. 4, 1970, the church had a new pastor who also had come and gone. The Rev. David Clark, who had pastored here for a few years, and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where he was involved with Chi Alpha, which is an Assembly of God youth ministry.
Around March 25, 1971, Duane Smelser from the University of Washington accepted the position as the new pastor in Newcastle. He and his wife, Mary, had two kids, 11-year-old Connie and 8-year-old Kevin. 
An article from the Aug. 26, 1976, issue of the News Letter Journal announced that Norm Brotzman succeeded Smelser as the pastor, and he remains the pastor today. He has served as the Wyoming District Council Assembly of God Sunday School secretary-treasurer, Sunday school representative and youth representative for four years. His wife was active in ladies’ activities, Sunday school, youth group and as a camp nurse. 
The Nov. 10, 1977, paper reported that Sunday, Nov. 13, was to be known as “Beda Jacobson Day.” Beda Jacobson was a Sunday school teacher at the church who was moving to Springfield, Missouri. Her former students were honoring her at the morning church services, to be followed by a carry-in dinner hosted by the Women’s Ministries Group. Jacobson came to Newcastle in 1946 and was employed at the Black Hills Bible Institute at the Flying V Guest Ranch when the Rev. Neil McDaniel was the director. When Black Hills Bible Institute lost its lease on the property four years later, she moved to a log house north of the Flying V to operate a
truck garden. 
In 1953, Jacobson purchased the Dalmar Hotel with her sister, Antonette, from
Harry Spargur. 
“They operated the Hotel for roomers and ‘old folks … ’ some 32 ‘old folks’ have resided at the Hotel,” the
 article says.
Jacobson’s devotion to the church was “evident since her arrival in Newcastle.” She was a Sunday school teacher for 27 years and an adult Bible teacher for 25 years. She also served as treasurer for 24 years and a substitute speaker for “Heart to Heart.” Although a native of Wisconsin, Jacobson lived most of her life in Newcastle. She graduated from River Falls, Wisconsin, and attended Open Bible Institute in Iowa, followed by missionary work in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She also worked in a defense plant in Oregon during
World War II. 
“Beda said she has enjoyed her years in Newcastle ‘immensely’ and is a booster of Newcastle’s climate,” the
article says. 
She sold the hotel to build a home in Missouri, but at the time, she had no definite plans for the future, other than hoping to have time for reading and handicrafts.
Over 40 years later, Brotzman is still the pastor of the Newcastle Assembly of God church, but before concluding the series, Cash wanted to include Mina Young’s personal account of the
church history. 
Young’s memories are documented on Ancestry.com, and in the records, she says she remembered the church starting with evangelistic meetings in the late 1920s while she was still in high school, which we discussed last week. Merril Johnson did the preaching and also played piano and tenor Mandola, but he was only 15 years old. The other preacher, Henry Nygaard, on the other hand, was a “30-something Norwegian from Minnesota,” who played the banjo and guitar, among other things. 
“It was new and exciting, but it finally gelled down to a few people who got saved and started a church. That summer, I just knelt down by my bed one day and said, ‘Lord, if I’m not saved I want to be,’ and that was it,” Young wrote. 
She remembered having services in the city hall and possibly a rented building on the south side of Main Street, “where it ended at Dow’s Garage” near the library
and courthouse. 
Activities slowed down, and, Young said, for a while, the church didn’t have services. However, a few people hung on to hope, particularly Ariel MacIntosh. MacIntosh persuaded Melvin Hodges to preach, which he did after prayerful consideration. Hodges eventually left Newcastle to become a missionary. When he left, it was arranged for Mrs. Hodges’ sister Esther Crews and her co-worker Helen Bryan to take over. When Bryan left to get married, Martha Kummerfeld took her place before Leonard Lanphere came. According to Young’s memories, Lanphere left both the church and
his wife. 
Following Lanphere were Jake and Alice Schaffers. During that time, Young wrote a few vacation Bible school lessons. Young moved to Springfield when Cummings was the pastor, but before finishing her memories on the church history, she included a comical story. She recalled Roy and Goldie Stevens being a part of the Newcastle church, and their 4-year-old daughter Lois May was given a dollar. 
“She looked at it in disgust and said, ‘you can buy candy with a penny, but what can you do with an old dollar?’” Young says in the
Ancestry article.
And that concludes the history on the Newcastle Assembly of God church.