Soon after we launched The Patriot Post online almost 30 years ago, I singled out two pastors — friends who had a significant mentoring influence in my life. They agreed to become our chaplains and committed to being staff resources and praying regularly for our team.

One of those chaplains was a longtime brother, Lurone Jennings, who died unexpectedly this week at age 70.

We first met decades ago when he was director of The Bethlehem Center, a faith-based ministry dedicated to transforming lives and communities through Character Development, Education/Literacy opportunities, and Leadership Development. Lurone’s focus for his entire career emphasized raising the next generation of young people to live good and exemplary lives, particularly those in the community he grew up in and served: inner-city black kids — those who were at greatest risk.

After graduating from Fisk University and completing graduate work at Trevecca Nazarene College, he became a public school educator in Chattanooga, Tennessee. An outstanding football player in his early years, he also coached at the high school level, which is why, many years later, almost anywhere you broke bread with Lurone, somebody was likely to say, “Hey, Coach!”

Among those he mentored was NFL All-Pro Defensive End Reggie White, a Super Bowl XXXI champion with the Green Bay Packers. After Reggie’s death, Lurone recalled that his “value system was phenomenal” and “he never wavered.” He also mentored WNBA basketball player and 1996 Olympics gold medalist Venus Lacy. Their lives and many others were forever changed for good by his faithful counsel.

Lurone would later become a high school principal and then director of drug education with responsibility for programs in 41 schools. It was in that capacity he gained firsthand insights into the limitations and futility of government solutions for schools and urban centers in crisis. That was the subject of his book, Crises in Urban America.

Those insights convinced him to leave the government education system in 1995 for full-time ministry, becoming the founding pastor of a church and running his denomination’s neighborhood centers.

Among other connections with Lurone, every Christmas, our Boy Scout Troop collected a pickup-load of goods, and he connected us with those most in need — individuals and families he served — so that we could bring a little Christmas spirit into their lives. It was a highlight of our two family Eagle Scouts’ annual activities, as much because of the opportunity to serve as it was the opportunity to learn from Coach Lurone. And the most memorable individual we had the privilege of serving until his death was Mr. Bibb, age 103.

It was at breakfast one morning soon after we met when I first heard Lurone lecture on “poverty pimps,” referring to those who are elected to public office on the promise of a handout rather than a hand up — this from a man who has devoted his life to serving those most ensnared by those handouts.

Lurone explained: “Handouts are much easier to dispense than hand-ups, but the negative consequences in terms of degraded human dignity and cultural decline are devastating. Promising to give a man a fish rather than encouraging him to take up fishing to provide for himself is one of the clearest philosophical delineations between urban political policies.”

He added: “While advocates of the Great Society may have had good intentions, the net result of their endeavors has been the institutionalization of poverty, and the ‘victimization’ of what has become a dependent political constituency: black folks.”

He concluded: “Generations of Americans have become accustomed to being given, or at least promised, fish caught by someone else. [One political party] has banked their entire political fortunes on the politics of disparity, promoting disparity in order to foster dependence.”

Of course, having to work with some of those “poverty pimps,” Lurone had to carefully thread that needle of assessment in order not to alienate urban leaders who promoted the generational policies responsible for systemic poverty.

There were a few community leaders who, once finding out that he did not toe the line on their urban policies, ostracized him. But most the urban leaders who knew him, embraced Lurone’s indomitable faith and spirit despite their differences.

In “retirement,” Lurone became chairman of the Mary Walker Foundation.

No, not Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman who holds a Medal of Honor for her service in Chattanooga during the War Between the States. Lurone’s Foundation honors another equally impressive “Mary Walker” with Chattanooga roots: Mary Hardway Walker.

At the age of 114, Mary enrolled in classes with the Chattanooga Area Literacy Movement, and when she graduated at age 116, she had learned, for the first time in her life, to read, write, and do basic math. She was subsequently honored by two presidents as the nation’s oldest student. She had achieved her life goal of learning to read the Bible that was given to her as a child in the 1860s by a woman who told her, “Your freedom is in these pages.”

Lurone’s service with that board was a fitting bookend to his lifelong service to others.

Lurone once said of what he wanted to achieve, “I always wanted to be a trailblazer to guide others to see that light come on.” He was a life-saving point of light for countless young people.

I think that how we recall the imprinted image of the face of a friend after they are gone, says a lot about how they lived. I can only recall Lurone with a warm smile on his face, offered to everyone along his path. I will miss him — all whose lives he touched will miss him.

Please pray for his family and friends through his departure.