Fagala to be honored for 50 years in ministry

GRAVETTE - A reception honoring Dan Fagala for his 50 years in the gospel ministry will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 27, at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Bella Vista.

Fagala served as minister of Beacon Missionary Baptist Church in Gravette for 38 years, until his retirement, when he and his wife Joyce moved to Bella Vista in 2009.

It was a short retirement. After moving, the couple joined the Fellowship church. It was soon afterwards, the church pastor retired and Dan agreed to fill in as interim pastor. In September, two years ago, Dan became the church’s full-time pastor.

Fagala grew up in Cave Springs and graduated from Bentonville High School in 1956. It was while attending Central Baptist College in Conway he met Joyce Speer. They married in 1959.

He later graduated from Arkansas State Teachers’ College, now UCA, and after a stint with the editorial services department at the University of Arkansas, he and a partner formed an illfated art/advertising agency in Fayetteville.

“It was a difficult time,”he remembers, so he joined a six-month program in the Army and was eventually stationed at Ft. Ord, Calif.

It was there he dealt with a call from the Lord and surrendered to the ministry on a Sunday night, July 14, 1963, and preached his first sermon one week later. His second sermon was at First Baptist Church in Cave Springs, the church where he grew up. The next week he was at Ft. Hood, Texas, for summer camp.

His pastoral calls included the Apostolic Missionary Baptist Church (now Round Mountain) in Fayetteville in August, 1936. Later churches were in Munford, Tenn.; Wynne and Salem, a rural church located near Fayetteville where he was serving until 1971, when he preached three sermons at the relatively-new Beacon Missionary Baptist Church in Gravette. The Gravette congregation called him as its minister.

Dan held a teaching certificate and, to supplement his pastoral salary, he applied for a teaching position at Bentonville. A church member and teacher in Gravette, Wanda Trembly, suggested he apply at Gravette.

“I talked with the superintendent at Gravette,” Dan remembers. “That was in July,1971. After talking with him in his back yard that Sunday afternoon, his only question was, ‘Can you handle kids?’”

Dan’s positive response led to five years as a part-time pastor and teaching at Gravette High School.

“The teacher salary was $3,600,” he recalled.

What followed was going full-time as pastor, and the resulting growth at the church resulted in fi ve building programs during the next few years.

“After 38 years, I felt the church needed younger leadership and I felt I could retire from full-time and just do fi ll-in work.”

In the summer of 2010, the couple moved to Bella Vista where another door opened.

“At age 75, I hope to continue to serve the Lord in the ministry as long as I can. I’m so grateful for the Lord allowing me these 50 years in the ministry,” Dan said.

Throughout the past 50 years, his help-mate, Joyce, was and is an integral part of the ministry of the couple, as were their two children, Janette and Danny. Joyce has served as pianist and organist and has taught classes many years in their churches. And now, though their children do not live nearby, the second and now third generations have continued in ministries of their own.

Dan served as moderator for both Benton and Washington County Associations, as well as the BMA of the Ozarks during the past 30 years. He served as vice moderator of the state association and for two years was state moderator. He has handled the myriad duties as youth camp director for more than 40 years, and has served on the board of trustees at Central Baptist College for 15 years. In Gravette, he was one of the founders of the Care and Share benevolent organization, has served on the Gravette City Council, was a pillar in the Gravette Lions Club and was involved in countless civic and charitable activities throughout the years.

Dan has the reputation as a fisherman - a crappie fisherman. It has often been said, “He can catch ‘em just by calling them up: ‘here, fishy, here fishy.’” How many thousand crappie fillets he has served for his church and Lions Club fish fries are incalculable. And the tradition continues.

This brings us to today: Friends, former and fellow church members and all who have been blessed by his and Joyce’s service, are invited to drop in at the reception.

“Only the gift of your presence is requested,” said Danny and Janette. They and their families will also be present to greet and renew friendships from the more than 40 years the Fagala family was, and continues to be, a part of Gravette.

News, Pages 5 on 07/17/2013