wfn.org | NBC to air 'Lifetime of Sharing'

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (131
notes).

Note 131 by UMNS on May 30, 1997 at 16:11 Eastern (4983 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency
of the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn.,
New York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Linda Green                     319(10-31-71BP){131}    
          Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470         May 30, 1997

NOTE:  Photo available to accompany this story.

United Methodist laywoman to be featured
on NBC-TV 'Lifetime of Sharing' special

by Nancye M. Willis*

     NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)--If the life of Laura McCray were
made into a movie, it would rival "Forrest Gump" for number of
associations with history-making events and people.
     McCray, 88, an active member of Edgehill United Methodist
Church here, knows of no plans for a movie, but an Aug. 3 NBC-TV
documentary will profile her extraordinary life, along with
others.  The special focuses on people who have lived through much
of the 20th century and represent spirituality at work.  
     NBC-TV will air "A Lifetime of Sharing," produced by the
National Council of Churches (NCC) as a part of the network's 1997
"Horizons of the Spirit" series to affiliates nationwide, each of
which has the option to carry it.
     It is suggested that United Methodists who want to ensure
that the program will be carried on a station in their area
contact representatives of their local NBC affiliates and urge
other interested individuals to do the same.
     McCray is featured as an example of an African-American woman
who has worked through church and community structures to further
the causes of civil rights, hunger relief, African-American
education and Christian service.
     Born in Battle Creek, Mich., McCray is the daughter of an
Alabaman, a trained physiotherapist at Battle Creek Sanitarium, an
innovative spa founded by John Harvey Kellogg. 
     When Booker T. Washington appealed to Kellogg for funds for
Tuskegee Institute, he got more in the bargain.  McCray's father
was chosen to travel with him and monitor his health.
     Transplanted to Alabama, McCray's parents continued to share
their skills--her father, health-related knowledge; her mother,
kindness and good cooking--with the community.
     "Their relationship, I think, helped me to know what love
could be," she recalls.  Although neither was highly educated, she
says "they were educators" who helped found a school.
     McCray's parents enrolled her in Barber Memorial Seminary to
complete high school.  Describing her stay there, she says, she
came to love the "quiet hours where we would have to study."
     She went on to graduate from Tuskegee in 1932, and soon
afterward, married William Buck, whom she had met on a blind date. 
The young couple took jobs: she, as administrative assistant to
Tuskegee's dean of students; he, as director of food services at a
veterans' hospital.  Her husband died young after taking on extra
hospital duties in the tuberculosis ward and contracting the
disease, leaving McCray with three small children to support.
     She remarried that same year, gaining a stepfather for her
children, and maintaining a happy marriage for 22 years.
     As part of her job at Tuskegee, she attended workshops at
nearby Highlander Folk School.  During one workshop, the director
charged a participant that McCray thought was not interested with
a mission: "'Rosa, when you go back to Montgomery, do something
about what you have learned.'  And Rosa said, 'I'll try.'
     "The next time I heard from Rosa (Parks), she had refused to
give up her seat to this white person on the bus and started the
Montgomery bus boycott," McCray recalls.
     McCray took the words to heart as well, helping Tuskegee
students find jobs, and, with her husband, beginning a school to
help young people master business skills.  "I'd work at Tuskegee
until 4:30 p.m. and then from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m., I would do
tutoring work in business," she says.
     A colleague of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., McCray was
active in the civil-rights movement, working toward change and
maintaining the firm belief that change would come.
     After retiring from Tuskegee, McCray moved to Nashville in
1976 to be near her daughter.  She continues to help others
through "Luke 14:12," a feeding program she started.
     Retirement presents itself to McCray as another opportunity
to help others.  "You never stop trying to do the best you can so
that you can help someone else to be the best that they can be,"
she concludes.
     United Methodist Communications' (UMCom) Nancy Jackson
produced the "A Lifetime of Sharing" segment on McCray, traveling
with her to Battle Creek and to Tuskegee to shoot portions.
     McCray has also been featured on "Passages," a 90-second
radio series produced cooperatively by UMCom and Presbyterian
Media Mission.
                               # # #
     *Willis is marketing information specialist at United
Methodist Communications. 

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