He was our leader

I hate it when the telephone rings late at night.

Rarely does anything good come from it.

Such was the case Friday night when I had already gone to bed and my wife had dozed off on the sofa in the den. I heard the telephone ring but I was so tired I didn't really think much about it.

Friday night. Probably a wrong number.

Moments later, my tearful wife roused me from my semi-conscious state to tell me about the tragic news of Sanny Wolfe's passing.

He had died quite unexpectedly at his home just a few hours earlier.

Y'all knew Sanny, right

Yeah, I thought so.

Everybody knew Sanny.

He was the public works director for the City of Gaffney. That and his musical prowess is how most folks knew him.

The musical aspect is how I came to know him. He was the music director at my church, Limestone Street Methodist.

Seven years ago, then-pastor Joyce Murphy strolled out into the congregation one fine Sunday morning and "volunteered" me to help with the children's sermon. See, Joyce never was bashful about convincing "volunteers" to join her at the front of the church to participate in one project or another.

On this particular occasion, my involvement consisted of performing a few lines from a song she had heard me sing in the hospital a few weeks earlier right before I had undergone heart surgery.

When I finished and returned to my seat, Sanny rose from his chair, nodded toward me and said, "Whenever you're ready, you can come on up here and sing with us."

Well, I resisted the invitation for awhile but eventually gave in and showed up for choir practice one Wednesday night. Nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, I sheepishly stuck my head around the corner and saw Sanny standing there in front of the choir loft.

"You sure you want me to do this?" I asked.

"Yes sir," he answered. "Come on up here. I've got a plan."

Borrowing a line from the movie Stripes, I told him, "Yeah, well, Custer had a plan."

And that's basically my choir-joining story.

Sanny was serious about his music, serious about getting it exactly right. Purt near, as they say, just never was good enough.

I used to kid him about picking on me and fellow tenor Mike Cudd so much.

"Hey Sanny," I said one day. "Do you think the last line on every page of every song we do is 'play the tenor' because you keep saying that but I don't see it written down here anywhere?"

He would on occasion repeatedly request Diane to "play the tenor" and require Mike and I to repeat our attempts until we achieved a satisfactory result.

Sanny could bring you to tears with his rendition of "Midnight Cry" or "The Holy City." He was a remarkable talent, the kind that doesn't come along very often.

He was patient and understanding with us, or at least with those of us who needed a little extra help. He loved being at church, he loved the Lord and he loved teaching and singing.

He was our leader, the heart and soul of our choir.

He was also my friend.

Our choir didn't sing Sunday because we were all too emotional. Being in those seats without Sanny up there to lead us was almost more than we could bear.

We were supposed to have performed a version of "Precious Memories" that contained a solo part that Sanny was supposed to have done.

Precious Memories.

Kind of ironic, ain't it?

Because that's what we will always carry in our hearts about Sanny - precious memories.

Thank you Sanny for all you did for us. We wish God's blessings for your family.

Amen.

(Klonie Jordan is executive editor of The Gaffney Ledger. You can contact him via e-mail at editor@gaffneyledger.com)