KYLE MURPHYStaff Writer

After serving 33 years as pastor of Marble Plains Baptist Church, Jack Hice will be retiring after conducting his final service Sunday, Aug. 20, along with celebrating his 91^st birthday. 

A week prior to his final service, Hice, surrounded by friends and church members, was presented two proclamations from Mayor Ray Knowis. The first proclamation was in recognition for Hice’s 33 years of service to the Tullahoma Community and Marble Plains Baptist Church as their pastor “Brother Jack.”

“On behalf of the 20,339 citizens that call Tullahoma home and by the authority vested in me, as Mayor of Tullahoma, I, now, therefore proclaim Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023 Brother Jack Hice Day in Tullahoma and urge and beseech all citizens to recognize the same,” Knowis said.

The other proclamation presented to Hice was recognizing Sat, Aug. 19, as Brother Jack Day in celebration of his 91^st birthday. Hice was born in Tullahoma on South Anderson Street at his grandfather’s house in 1932, and went to grammar school at South Jackson Street Grammar School. Once he got to Tullahoma High School, he played on the Wildcats football team from 1946 through 1949 and then graduated in 1950. After high school, he began a career at Arnold Engineering Development Complex for 37 and half years while serving as a vocational pastor for over 60 years.

“I have been at Marble Plains Baptist Church, located inside Tims Ford State Park, since 1990,” Hice said. “There were nine people there at the first service I had in 1990. We have now 265 members now.”

Hice said during his time in the ministry, he has preached 529 funerals, baptized 200 people and officiated about 100 weddings.

“The Lord had always been good to me,” Hice said. “The Lord has truly blessed me with a great family, a great church family and a great heavenly family.”

He also mentioned his wife, who passed away in 2015, played the organ at the church.

When looking back on his time with the ministry, Hice recalled a baptism he performed where he baptized 24 people at Tims Ford Lake and a funeral service involving the biker gang Hell’s Angels at Rose Hill Memorial Gardens.

“It was a girl, who I watched raised up from about a two-year-old girl up to when she was 28, so she overdosed one night and ran through her daddy’s garage doors into his house and it killed her,” he recalled. “She was a member of the Hell’s Angels out of Memphis, Tennessee, and when I did her service graveside service as Rose Hill 4o-some odd Hell’s Angels’ motorcycle boys and girls came in and they surrounded us and I didn’t know what in the world to do.”

Hice said he asked the Lord if He every helped him before then He’s going to have to help him that day.

“He gave me a message and those Hell’s Angels that was the first time I ever was hugged by a Hell’s Angels. They all lined up and hugged him,” Hice said. “That was one of the funerals I will always remember.”

As for his plans following retirement, Hice said he will be helping the interim pastor, Brother Roger Parks, where he will serve as Parks’ backup whenever he needs it.

Hice said for his last service on Sun, Aug. 20, the church will be hosting a birthday party for him where he estimates over 300 people will be there, including his family. For the last Sunday in August, Hice said he will perform one more baptism for some of the newest members of the church.