1968 Sherry Chessir Irvin climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in January 2012. 6329 Sewanee Avenue, Houston, TX 77005. sherryclimbsmountains@gmail.com
1969 Scott Waltman retired Feb. 29 from full-time ministry after 40 years, 25 of which were spent at the RiverWalk Church of Christ in Wichita, Kan. His wife, Jana (Van Eaton ’70), retired from her job as a legal administrator in December 2011. They plan to move to South Carolina. 244 N. Summitlawn, Wichita, KS 67212. swaltman@cox.net
Jon-Michael and Allison Clark. 3209 Bridlegate Drive, Arlington, TX 76016.
1975 Karen (Lykins) Fitzpatrick earned her M.A. in marriage and family therapy from Amridge University in August 2011. She works as a therapist for elementary school children in Asheville, N.C. 44 W. Fairway Drive, Etowah, NC 28729. karen@beverly-hanks.com Claudia (Tabor) Williams retired in May 2011 after 34 years of teaching and moved from New Mexico to Colorado. 24841 E. Ontario Drive, Aurora, CO 80016. ctabwill@gmail.com
1976
1971 Ron (’69) and Sharon (Lucas) James have a new address. 121 Silverado Drive, Georgetown, TX 78633. esjames@kingwoodcable.com James (’72) and Millie (Herbert) Clark have a new grandson, Jude Thomas Clark, born April 20, 2012, to
Coleen (Moran) Meyer was named a distinguished administrator by the Texas Music Educators Association for her work in preserving music education programs in her school and district. She is a principal in the Leander ISD. 311 S. Kings Canyon, Cedar Park, TX 78613. michialm@sbcglobal.net
1977 Dr. Darla Smith retired Aug. 31, 2011, as a professor and department chair at The University of Texas at El Paso. She continues to work part time. 11105 Aragon Drive, Austin, TX 78759. darsmith@utep.edu Denise (Reagan) Goode is a special education teacher in the Newport Special School District. 401 E. Booth Road, Searcy, AR 72143.
1979 Luann (Lambert) Golden is executive director of the Association for Independent Living, a life skills campus for young adults with cognitive disabilities in Dallas. She and her husband have one daughter, Darah Eberle, and a grandson, Jacob. P.O. Box 112445, Carrollton, TX 75011. luann.golden@afildfw.org
1980 Jeff and Sharon (Hale) Grady have moved. Jeff continues to work for Hess Corporation.
‘Hell and Mr. Fudge’ explores theological journey of alumnus and his hot topic of study Author, teacher and theologian Edward Fudge (’67) is accustomed to discussing hell, a topic he has exhaustively researched. So when he was interviewed for a documentary on the subject a couple of years ago, Fudge was surprised when the discussions turned personal. e filmmakers wanted to do a movie about his life. “His story is so good that it just came to us that it would make a great movie,” says Pat Arrabito, CEO of LLT Productions of Napa Valley, Calif., and executive producer of Hell and Mr. Fudge. According to her, LLT Productions is a non-profit 501(c)3 Christian organization dedicated to producing quality films on a variety of Christian subjects. e producers, director, screenwriter, wardrobe director and art director met with Edward and Sara Faye Fudge over the course of several months. ey requested to see photos from the past to get a sense of the time period, visited sites from Fudge’s upbringing, and put out casting calls. In the summer of 2011, Hell and Mr. Fudge filmed in Fudge’s hometown of Athens, Ala., with an $800,000 budget. e movie stars Mackenzie Astin as Edward, Keri Lynn Pratt as Sara Faye, John Wesley Shipp as Edward’s father Bennie Lee Fudge, and Eileen Davidson as his mother, Sybil Fudge. is past April, the production received the 2012 Platinum Award in the eatrical Feature Film - Christian category at the Houston International Film Festival. e film debuted in June in Houston and Athens at special invitational showings for the Fudges’ family, friends and movie extras in Athens. Still waiting for a distributor, the movie played in June at the omas H. Olbricht Christian Scholars Conference in Nashville, Tenn., and is being test-marketed in at least three cities around the country. It has been entered in film 72
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festivals in Chicago and Indianapolis, and was shown Sept. 17 at ACU’s Summit. So what makes Fudge’s story so compelling that someone would want to make it into a movie? Raised by a preacher and publisher in Alabama, Fudge became a serious Bible student at a young age. After earning his master’s degree and taking a preaching job, he wrote then-ACU Bible professor Dr. Tom Olbricht in 1969, asking for subjects that needed further study. According to Fudge, Olbricht said, “I find it interesting that the word gehenna is only found in a limited context. I wonder how the rest of the New Testament writers talk about the end of the wicked.” Not long after, Fudge was invited to speak on the subject at an event in Illinois. “I didn’t really have a lot to say on hell at that time. I noted that the word gehenna is found only 12 times in the Bible,” Fudge says. So he delved into researching New Testament passages referring to the saved and the lost in the same verse, and the historical significance of the statements. After he wrote his presentation, he repackaged it as an article and submitted it to Christianity Today, which published it in August 1976. Across the world in Australia, Christian publisher Robert Brinsmead read Fudge’s article. Wrestling with his own beliefs about hell, Brinsmead offered Fudge $2,500 if he would spend time studying the topic. “He said, ‘Here’s what I need. I want you to tell me everything in the Old Testament about the end of wicked, everything in
the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, between the testaments, everything that Jesus says, everything you can learn about it from the cross and the death of Christ, Paul, the rest of the New Testament writers, the apostolic fathers, the Ante-Nicene Fathers, the Latin fathers, the Greek fathers, medieval theologians, the Reformers, and modern theologians.’ “I said, ‘OK, sounds like I will be busy,’” says Fudge with a chuckle. “Busy” is an understatement. For the next year, Fudge spent countless hours reading and comparing copious writings, commentaries, articles and, of course, the scriptures dealing with hell. Although he claims it is overplayed, the movie portrays his obsession with the research as a strain on his marriage and family life. In the end, his own beliefs about the doctrine of final punishment underwent upheaval when he concluded that, in a nutshell, hell is a place of total destruction, rather than eternal torment, for nonbelievers – a concept known as annihilationism. “I will tell you this – with no desire to exaggerate or to be controversial – that no one before or after could have been more astounded at the things I found throughout the Bible during the course of my study,” Fudge wrote later. In the movie, as in real life, Fudge struggled with what to do with his groundbreaking and ground-shaking conclusions about hell. “If this is what the Bible teaches, then it’s what I should say, whatever the consequences should be,” he says. “So I debated with myself – this is part of the tension in the movie – can I say this