Page 77 - Wayne County

“I was saved at age nine and from then on knew I wanted to go into the ministry. It was several years later, though, toward the end of high school that I actually got the call.” remembers the Reverend Julian Tucker. “A bunch of us had been in town (Fitzgerald) fooling around and I was headed home, had the radio on and the song 'I'd Rather Have Jesus' came on. That station didn't usually play that kind of music and for some reason that night they played it. As I sat in the truck, listening to that song, God really spoke to my heart, to such a degree that I stopped the truck, got out and got on my knees in prayer and answered the call to preach.”

Fifty-one years later this United Methodist minister continues to step into the pulpit on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings to fulfll his calling. Upon graduation from high school his pastor in Fitzgerald pointed him toward Young Harris, then a junior college. They sent him two dollars a week for incidentals and he worked at jobs on campus. On graduation day he married his sweetheart, M.Dean Wright, and went back to Fitzgerald where she was going to teach and he was going

to continue his education at Statesboro, then Georgia Teachers' College. After about two months, they realized this was not going to work and she joined him there. They recently celebrated their ffty-ninth anniversary. While a student in Statesboro, Julian worked with Dr. Frederick Wilson at the First Methodist Church.

“On the day I graduated I was assigned to the Methodist church in Willacoochee, Georgia and so we drove there and spent the night, the night I graduated. We were there fve years. We had a wonderful ministry there and a wonderful time and still have some very dear friends.”

After the fve years, they moved to Albany to a new church that had started only a couple of years before and the pastor had died of a heart attack. It was in a new area of the city. At that time Turner Air Force Base and the Marine Supply Center were very active. After four years at Albany, they went to McRae, Georgia serving four years there also. Due to various reasons, he left the ministry. He worked as a scout executive for Boy Scouts of America for two years.