Allen and Sandra Ecker

Allen and Sandra Ecker were interviewed for a celebration of the 60th anniversary of our church on East Rock Springs Road. We see their names every time we enter the Ecker Fellowship Hall.

Allen: I’m Allen Ecker, and I joined the church originally as a teenager in 1951, and then again after I came back from the Air Force in 1966.

Sandra: I’m Sandra Ecker, and I joined the church in 1966 when Dwight Nysewander was here.

Allen: Joining Haygood as a teenager was because of a young man named Bob Hannah, who was my good friend at Grady High School. He brought me to the youth group, and then my parents joined after I did.

Sandra: I think when I came I sort of became an agent of change. I think back on three different projects that I did. One was with the UMW [United Methodist Women] where we did the Missions Day. We had always done things that we read that were handed down by the Conference, but the years they asked me to do it, along with Merle Toler, we took over the Wednesday Night Suppers for a month and invited outside speakers. We had Peris Harris and Rev. William Holmes Borders [pastor of Wheat Street Baptist Church and civil rights activist], who was the first Black minister who came to speak to us at church. We had Rev. Gallantier, who was a night minister who went around to the night clubs and spoke to people there, and we also had a woman minister, and that was the first woman to speak in the church. Also later on, we did some changes. Betty Walker and I were the first co-presidents of the UMW here, and that tradition has continued. And at one point I was chairman of the Council on Ministries, and we decided we would tear down the Gaston Building up on the hill. That was the beginning of the gym and the new Sunday School classes there, with the project headed by Harrison Kohler.

Allen: I’ve served in multiple positions here in the church — chairman of the Administrative Board, chairman of the Board of Trustees, chairman of the Staff-Parish Relations committee — but one of the really critical new things was when we started the Day Care Center. We worked together to form the board, and I chaired the board of the Day Care Center. There was a dispute within the church as to whether we really could afford to have a Day Care Center and we had a church meeting to vote and decide to do that. That was where we started the ministry to the neighborhood which then grew into the Weekday Children’s Ministries.

Sandra: I’ll also say that I’ve been Circle chairman of Circle 7, which you’ll hear a lot about.

Allen: The sports program has always been important, as you’ve heard from many of the interviews, that became basketball and softball, and I played on the softball team for George Oliver with many players here. But one of the notable stories I have to tell on myself was that at that time I was chairman of the Administrative Board. I’d played baseball and softball in high school and in the Air Force and always thought the base path belonged to the runner. And I was coming home and the catcher was blocking the plate and I ran over him to score but then got thrown out of the game, and so the chairman of the Administrative Board got thrown out of the game and had to leave! I didn’t know they had a special rule that you couldn’t run over the catcher!

Sandra: We had three children who grew up here in the church: Steve and Holly and Mike. Along with their friends, it was a wonderful childhood time for them with all the activities. I was active in the children’s ministries, teaching Sunday School and other areas, even taking over some substituting for the Day Care Center when it started. It’s just been a wonderful place for us. Just like this morning [a 60th anniversary service], so many people came back to visit. They either have parents here or they have friends here or it’s just home to them.

Allen: The one final thing I would like to say is that I’d like to say a few words about Howard Wise, who was the custodian here when I joined the church as a teenager, and I think every young person and teenager got to know Howard. He was really a fixture and a mentor to many of the youth and teenagers, and it was really delightful for me to see when my own children were youth and teenagers in the church that they also had that same relationship with Howard. He was here for 42 years, at least, as the custodian, but probably he should have been called an associate pastor.

Sarah Fedota transcribed this interview in 2025 from a video recording made for Haygood’s 60th anniversary. Editorial comments that explain acronyms or other information are in brackets, and some spellings of names may not be accurate. We welcome corrections.