On Monday afternoon (May 7) Covenant College announced the passing of a long tenured and deeply loved Physics professor, Ray Dameron

Ray was from Chester, PA, born on Sept. 19, 1923. He served with the Air Force in World War II. He was a graduate of Widener College (formerly the Pennsylvania Military College) where he majored in Chemistry and Physics.

In the 1950’s Ray and his family moved to St. Louis from Newark, DE and went to work for Monsanto Chemical. Ray entered Covenant Seminary in 1957 to train for the ministry. Will Barker, former president of the seminary was an entering student that same year.

However, Ray – apparently one of the very early second career seminary students at Covenant – was working not just the one job, but also began teaching chemistry at Covenant College in 1959 – which was then co-located with the Seminary. Ray received a BD degree from the seminary in 1963 (updated to MDiv in the 70’s), and was ordained and installed as pastor of the Westminster Reformed Presbyterian Church, in Chesterfield, MO – a nearby suburb to St. Louis.

In 1964, the college moved to its own (and current) facility atop Lookout Mountain, outside Chattanooga, TN. Ray and his family made the move with them, becoming a professor of physics. He continued full time teaching for another 35 years through 1994. After retirement he filled in as an adjunct until 2001 when his health no longer enabled him to teach.

“Ray’s love for the Lord manifested in him a joy for living and learning,” says Dr. Jeff Hall, vice president for academic affairs in a press release on Monday. “His deep faith and his keen wit were sources of encouragement for the College community.”

Ray is survived by his wife, Dorothy and their daughter, Beth, a 1975 graduate of the college, who is married to Randy Carroll, a 1974 alum. Ray is survived by three grandchildren and one great grandchild.

Plans for services have been approved by the family. Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church, home church for Ray and Dorothy for many years, released this information:

Thursday, May 10th 1:30 p.m. there will be a family and close friends graveside ceremony at Chattanooga National Cemetery on Bailey Avenue, a facility operated by the U. S. Veterans Administration.

On Friday, May 11th there will be a time from 10:30 -12:00 noon for visitation of family and friends at Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church, in the fellowship hall.

Then at 12:00 noon on Friday, there will be a memorial service for Ray held in the LMPC sanctuary. Senior Pastor Joe Novenson has returned briefly from a sabbatical to preach this service.

Now – for the rest of the story. Although his students for over four decades appreciated him, admired him, and had lots of laughs with him (while really learning, of course) many of his contemporaries in the ministry – especially those with roots in the RPCES – remember him best for being the gutbucket* accompanist and backup singer for Tom Jones.

No, not that Tom Jones. For PCA Teaching Elder Tom Jones, another former RPCES minister and classmate of Ray’s from the early 60’s. The Aquila Report contacted Tom at his home on Monday evening and fleshed out the story.

Tom (who lives in southern Illinois) had not visited Ray for some time until just last week, Tuesday, when he saw him in the hospital during his final stay. Tom reported that Ray had a small stroke a few months back, and then was hospitalized with a staph infection which took a lot out of him. Several weeks ago he moved from hospital to a nursing home and then, last week, back to hospital.

During his visit with Ray last Tuesday, Tom began singing one of their songs, and Ray nodded his head in time to the music. A little later, Ray said: ‘I saw this lady who had a tattoo’ – part of a line from one of their folk songs. Only the wit of Ray Dameron could come up with those final words for Tom. Now – you need to know where they came from.

Ray & Tom met originally at Covenant Seminary. Ray moved to Lookout Mountain in 1964, and the next year, 1965, Tom finished seminary and was ordained and took the call as the first pastor of the ‘College Church’ – Reformed Presbyterian Church of Lookout Mountain, GA.

During that period Tom and Ray teamed up for a 30 year career as a singing act. Tom was the songwriter, lead singer, and guitar player. Ray accompanied his young protégé’ on the Washtub Bass* and would sing backup – usually at times that surprised Tom. Ray also maintained the very necessary straight face.

They sang mostly just folk songs – the silly kind – like ‘Classified’ (better known by the lead line – ‘I was thumbing through the classifieds in the Shelby County Tribune…), or ‘A Dog Named Blue’, or ‘The Annual Lewis and Clark County Fair’. Ray’s tattooed lady statement comes from the line in that one that goes “I saw the whole world tattooed on this lady and I witnessed an earthquake in Spain’.

It should be noted at this point that folk was not Ray’s only music love: he sang with the Chattanooga Opera chorus for many years and was a regular member of the church choir.

Now, to be fair, Tom and Ray did a lot of Christian music in their concerts – usually highlighted each year at the family conference in Horn Creek, Colorado. But in the late 70’s they found a special niche.

It began at the 1976 RPCES Synod meeting in Colorado Springs. The big topic that year was whether or not to ordain women to the office Deacon. And they wrote a song that included these lines (sung to the tune of The Wabash Cannonball):

The problem of our deacons’ board seemed very full of fate

If we filled it full of women would the office stag-a-nate?

We argued and considered and when the tension grew

Our brother Kyle Thurman told us everything he knew

He said that in his thinkin’ it really seemed unwise

To lay hands on a woman suddenly or otherwise

And so Mr. Hurley’s paper which gave Synod quite a stir

After hours of debatin’ was decided to refer

Three years later the topic came back to the floor of the 1979 Synod in Greenville, SC, so they added one final stanza to the song:

So now it’s three years later and from Colorado to Maine

We’ve studied the whole issue and we’re more or less the same

In every presbytery and on the Synod floor

We’ve talked it through and thought it through until our minds are sore

So we’ve come to this conclusion since the issue came and went

This thing may be in the Bible, but not the Form of Government,

So if you have Lady Deacons or deaconesses in your church

Don’t talk of it at Synod, you might get left in the lurch

(Editor’s Note: that last line explains a lot, doesn’t it?)

Undoubtedly their most famous song was written in 1981, the year the offer came to the RPCES Synod to consider Joining and Receiving with the PCA. Here are the last two verses, along with the very catchy chorus:

Well we talked and talked all afternoon

And some folks thought we’d moved too soon,

And others said the committee’d gone too far.

But on one thing we all agreed, there’s one thing that our churches need. They need a shirt that says, “Who shot J and R?”

Well I’ve thought it through again and again, and I think my brain is wearin’ thin.

I don’t know if this thing’ll make us weak or strong

I just don’t know what would be best,

So here’s the thing that I suggest:

Let’s just join and sing the words of this little song.

I’ve been an OP, BP, and EPC, and RPCES

And what I’ll be this time next year is anybody’s guess.

Now – a few personal comments: I’ve known Tom and Ray since my days at Covenant seminary in the early 70’s. I attended the 1973 Synod in Lookout Mountain and will never forget the opening worship service with the singing of All Hail The Power Of Jesus Name (3rd tune in the Blue Trinity – Eller’s ‘Diadem’). We were all jammed in to Tom’s church across the street from the college. The power of all those great male voices just about blew the roof off that night. I had liked hymns since my conversion, but that night I absolutely fell in love with ‘the great hymns of the faith.’

I have a copy of an informally recorded cassette tape with the 8 great ‘Songs of the Church’ (as they called them), and a bunch of their folk songs that I have cherished for nearly 30 years. I found them immediately after I heard the news of Ray’s passing and sang along with them during the afternoon. It is my plan to start the process of getting the music transcribed to MP3 format. Tom is sending me the words to the songs, along with the explanation for the setting of each one. When that work is completed, we’ll put the story up on The Aquila Report.

*The washtub bass, or “gutbucket”, is a stringed instrument used in Americanfolk music

that uses a metal washtub as a resonator. Although it is possible for a washtub bass to have four or more strings and tuning pegs, traditional washtub basses have a single string whose pitch is adjusted by pushing or pulling on a staff or stick to change the tension. (from Wikipedia)

@Copyright 2012 The Aquila Report – all rights reserved

Don K. Clements is a Teaching Elder in the PCA and currently is called as an Associate Evangelist with PEF and, more often than not, is an Interim Pastor (currently at Pulaski PC in Pulaski, Virginia). He is a co-founder and currently News Editor at The Aquila Report.