Lonzie Cole Made a Difference / Urged Young Blacks Stay Fit and Learn

_{First in a series to celebrate February as Black History Month in our Area}

By Pauline Masson –

We are all familiar with the stories of famous Black athletes, movie stars, miltary heroes, musicians, and politicans. But in our local area, we are blessed with an impressive list of Black citizens who helped shape Local History.

Lonzie Cole 1928-2008, deserves to be remembered for the impression he made on young people. He died in his sleep and was found by his friend Cliff McDaniels, Associate Pastor at Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Villa Ridge, which had also been Lonzie’s home church for some 35 years. He was 80, but you would not have guessed it by looking at him.

For the last four decades of his life Lonzie Cole, Associate Pastor at Rose Hill, was a public figure filled with energy and unbounded enthusiasm. He talked to everyone. I took the photo above in 2002 during Alderman Rick Layton’s Safety Fair in the grocery store parking lot on West Osage (now B&H market). He walked up to me and said, “Why don’t you take my picture and write something about me. I’ve got a story.” Did he ever.

He was on a mission, he said, to encourage young Black people to stay fit, get an education and plan for a promising future. And, he had lots of help. Churches, civic leaders and business owners joined him in supporting and encouraging young Blacks to think ahead, go to college and take their places as good citizens.

“He was a man who wanted to do something important in the world,” Ed Hillhouse, then MVR-III school superintendent told the crowd gathered for the Franklin County Community Improvement Association (FCCIA)  banquet in November 2008. Hillhouse was the keynote speaker for the event that honored Lonzie who had died two months earlier.

“He wanted to make a difference in the place where he lived.” Hillhouse said. “And he chose to do that by educating young people.”

It was the first meeting of the organization following Lonzie’s death. And the banquet room at the Holiday Inn in Eureka was filled with families, students, and local leaders, who had been with Lonzie and the campaign for young people that he launched in 1973.

He wasn’t present but his name was on every speaker’s lips. Some tried to imitate the familiar raspy voice as they spoke of early morning phone calls and bemoaned Lonzie’s habit of tracking mud from an earlier plumbing job into living rooms and kitchens. 

He loaned his truck to one young man who had no way to get to work. It later turned out that the truck had bad brakes and an expired license but Lonzie had met his goal of helping a young man who came to him for assistance.

The primary reason for noting the imprint, muddy or otherwise, that Lonzie had left on the lives of those in attendance, Hillhouse said, was to assure them that he could not possibly be forgotten and to vow to continue the work that he had started.   

For 35 years, from 1973 until his death in 2008, Lonzie engaged everyone who would listen about the things that were possible if everyone worked together.

He first began helping people by forming an adult softball league at his church to raise funds to help people with groceries. When he decided to expand the assistance program to include college scholarships, he turned to the late L.B. Eckelkamp, Sr. a Washington lawyer to help him. 

“We recognized that the only way to do this was through business and community cooperation,” Lonzie had said at the birthday banquet in 2006.

“The first business person we turned to was the late L. B. Eckelkamp Sr.”

His son, L. B. Eckelkamp, Jr. continued to support the program and was the keynote speaker at Lonzie’s funeral held at Rose Hill Church, which, those of us who were present remember, was filled with way more laughter than tears.

The two developed a friendship and over 30 years and created the scholarship program that would provide financial assistance for scores of young people. 

Lonzie started the whole thing by forming the Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church Community Softball Team in 1973 as an outreach program for non-Christians, “or anyone who was interested.” To participate they had to abide by a few bylaws – attend church at least once a month, no drinking and no profanity. 

Two other local churches supported the softball program, Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Robertsville and First Baptist Church of Pacific. There were three teams, men, women and youth, and at one point there were as many as 50 or 60 players enrolled. 

Among the first supporters of the softball program were L.B. Eckelkamp Sr., Jim Feltmann Sr., Don and Bernie Hillermann, Bob Barreth, Raymond “Chic” Curran, Charlie Shaw, Albert Schultz and Johnny MacArthur, owner of Johnny Mac Sporting Goods, who supplied the teams their uniforms that first year on credit.

“The softball team was phased out because it just wasn’t effective,” Rev. McDaniel said at a 2017 FCCIA banquet. “We thought we could do more helping children with their education.”

In 1978 the group awarded its first college scholarships to local high school students, an effort made possible through the support of local business leaders – and the community.

Before the F.C.C.I.A. was fazed out in 2017, some 278 students from all across Franklin County had better futures because of a helping hand they received at a critical time in their education. After graduating from high school, these students received a one-year college scholarship through the FCCIA.  

The amounts of the scholarship, awarded to anyone who applied, varied each year depending on the number of students who applied and how much money was raised by the FCCIA that particular year. 

The amount of the scholarship was broken down into equal increments per student. Half was given at the first semester and half at the second. The group also held a Supporters’ Night each year to honor one of the FCCIA’s main sponsors. 

The first year the honor went to L.B. Eckelkamp Sr. In 2003, the group’s 30th anniversary, Lonzie, the founder and director of the FCCIA, was the honoree.

“It makes me feel good to know I’ve done something worthwhile in my life,” he said. “And I thank all who put their trust in me to support these young people these many years. It means a lot to have achieved something worthwhile.”

“I was a wild kid myself,” Lonzie added, “and this (the FCCIA) helped me learn to communicate with kids better, but it also motivated me.”

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