Running

Runners for Lord never become tired
Couple still evangelizing after 63 years

By BILL OSINSKI
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/02/05

The young couple rode into the towns of Dust Bowl-era Oklahoma, amplifying “The Word” through a loudspeaker mounted on the roof of their old Chevy.

He was a rodeo trick rider and a track athlete. She was a daughter of a preacher with Choctaw and Creek heritage. They had their own gospel program on the radio; he’d preach, and she’d play the accordion and sing hymns.

“We were out to evangelize the world all by ourselves,” laughed Wana Winfrey.

“. . . But we had a lot of fun,” added Gene Winfrey, in the genial way that long-married folks sometimes finish each other’s sentences.

That was 1942 — the year Gene Winfrey got married, was ordained a Baptist pastor, and was drafted into the infantry.

Now, 63 years later, the Winfreys are still married, still evangelizing, and, in Gene’s case, still running. (Wana swims.) They live in Loganville, and just about every weekend, they ride off together — one of them driving while the other sleeps, and then they switch — to their next revival engagement. He’s 82; she’s 80.

On Monday, Gene Winfrey will run in his 26th Peachtree Road Race. He keeps snapshots of himself from past years’ races taped inside the cover of his Bible.

On Monday, Gene Winfrey will run in his 26th Peachtree Road Race. He keeps snapshots of himself from past years’ races taped inside the cover of his Bible.

On Monday, Gene Winfrey will run in his 26th Peachtree Road Race. He keeps snapshots of himself from past years’ races taped inside the cover of his Bible.

To him, fighting the good fight has always meant running the race. He ran track in high school; he often led the 25-mile forced marches in his Army training; and he goes out for a jog about three times a week.

“I believe in exercise, vitamins and life in the spirit,” he said.

Except for the years of World War II, when Gene Winfrey fought in both the European and Pacific theaters, the Winfreys have traveled as a team. In the 57 years that he served as a pastor, mostly in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Georgia, they have helped start dozens of new churches. Two of those, Antioch Baptist and Eastwood Baptist, are still flourishing in Cobb County. They’ve moved their home 24 times.

The proceeds from their speaking engagements go into their nonprofit, Winfrey Evangelical Association, through which they support about 20 churches and a fund for retired pastors. Their current home church is Corinth Baptist Church of Loganville.

They met when Wana’s family moved into the parsonage of a church where Gene was a member. He was part of the moving crew, and she was 16.

He was also a regular on the rodeo circuit. Mostly he did trick riding, with the occasional brief excursion on the back of a Brahma bull.

“I married a cowboy . . .” Wana said.

“. . . Who turned into a preacher,” Gene added.

Though he’d thought about becoming a preacher since he was about 14, it took a tragedy to make him decide to answer the call. A friend of his was killed in a rodeo accident, and Gene decided that he would focus his life on the spiritual.

They married in 1942, and started their joint traveling ministry, combined with their preaching-and-singing show on the radio. She was already pregnant with their first child when Gene got his draft notice. The Army allowed him to stay with her until the baby was 10 days old.

Gene’s unit arrived in France in early 1945, at about the time the Battle of the Bulge was ending. He pitched a large tent near their encampment and started preaching. His captain made him the unit’s unofficial chaplain.

He never knew if he’d had much impact until a revival in Carrollton in 2002, when an elderly veteran told how he’d become a religious person after hearing “a young soldier preach at a tent service outside Paris.”

After VE Day, Gene thought his war was over. He returned to Oklahoma and enrolled in a Bible college to pursue a divinity degree. However, the Army called him back, assigning him to a unit that would be part of the planned invasion of Japan. That invasion never happened, but Gene’s unit was still shipped to the Pacific, where his duty was in the mountain jungles of the Philippine Islands, routing diehard Japanese soldiers who refused to believe the war was over.

He found a value in the dangerous duty that was keeping him away from his family. In the Philippines, he learned how to preach to, and learn from, people of another culture.

Those lessons served him well in the years to come. He mixed many foreign mission trips in with his pastorates back in the States. The Winfreys have lived mostly in metro Atlanta since the early 1960s.

“It’s been a full life . . .” Wana Winfrey said.

“. . . Of living for the Lord,” Gene said.

Runners for Lord never become tired*