Little Rock church custodian to get recognition

After 44 years on the staff, Booker Rodgers is retiring as senior custodian at Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church. Sunday, the congregation will honor his decades of faithful service.
(Courtesy photo)
After 44 years on the staff, Booker Rodgers is retiring as senior custodian at Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church. Sunday, the congregation will honor his decades of faithful service. (Courtesy photo)


Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church will pause Sunday to honor the longest-serving member of its ministry team.

Booker Rodgers, who is retiring as the Little Rock congregation's senior custodian, joined the staff in 1978, when Jimmy Carter was president and a gallon of gas cost roughly 70 cents.

He has been a fixture ever since.

"Booker has been in that church for 44 years. He is a Christ-like institution at that church. He has been a blessing to people in many ways [and] has ministered to many, many people over the years. He is a wonderful human being," Senior Pastor John Robbins said.

Jay Clark, the congregation's executive pastor, called Rodgers "a staple at Pulaski Heights."

"He's been through several senior pastors, a multiple of associate pastors and staff, and everyone just loves Booker," Clark said. "He's fun to be around, he's fun to watch, but he also does a great job at what he was hired to do. ... If you need anything done, then he's the one you ask, and it gets done."

Among the tasks that Rodgers has performed over the years: Removing the church's cornerstone in 2012, enabling congregants to remove and review the contents of a 62-year-old time capsule.

The contents, revealed on the church's centennial, were somewhat anticlimactic: Sunday School literature and a copy of the denomination's Book of Discipline, but no coins or collector's items.

Over the years, Rodgers has been present for scores of weddings and funerals, welcomes and farewells.

Sunday in the Gathering Hall, from 10:10-10:50 a.m., he'll be the guest of honor.

"We are really looking forward to celebrating Booker but we're also really going to miss him as well," Clark said.

Karon Mann, a Pulaski Heights member and former Arkansas Conference lay leader, praised Rodgers for his "spirit and his faithfulness."

"He is always there and will do anything for us," she said. "He's part of us. He's one of us. He's just amazing."

Rodgers was married at the church in 1986, uniting in holy matrimony with Theonita Diane Pettus in a service conducted by then-associate pastor Rodney Steele.

The church, at the time, "had a no flash photography wedding policy but when I pronounced them husband and wife so many cameras began to flash that it was like a Hollywood opening night or dance strobes at a disco," Steele recalled in an email.

While he can't vouch for the caliber of the photos, the quality of the relationship was unmistakable, Steele said.

"The love between them before that day, on that day and after that day has always inspired me and warmed my heart," he added.


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