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Julie & Donny Parker<br />
Brandon<br />
Melissa & Scott Crawford<br />
Pearl<br />
Donny and Julie sat beside each other in Mrs. Simpson’s<br />
first grade class at Iuka Elementary School. Their friendship<br />
developed through the tenth grade when Donny asked<br />
Julie out on a date to see the movie, “Three Men and a<br />
Little Lady” and dine at Taco Bell. Several more dates and<br />
a few high school dances later, the couple graduated from<br />
Iuka High School in 1992.<br />
The Christmas before the two of them went to<br />
Mississippi State, Donny proposed. Their engagement<br />
lasted all through college until Julie finished her student<br />
teaching. She said, “I finished student teaching on a<br />
Thursday, graduated from Mississippi State on Friday,<br />
and got married on Saturday.” Today, Donny and Julie<br />
live in Brandon. They have three children: Benton, Anna<br />
Scott, and Lila. This year, Donny and Julie will celebrate<br />
their twenty-first wedding anniversary.<br />
Scott and Melissa met in Hawaii in the summer of<br />
1986. Scott was serving as a minister of youth intern at<br />
First Southern Baptist Church of Pearl Harbor. That<br />
summer, Melissa helped Scott with ministry activities for<br />
the youth group. After that summer, they returned to their<br />
homes. They wrote to each other and spoke on the phone<br />
as often as they could. Melissa eventually asked Scott to fly<br />
out to California to meet her family. That week Scott said,<br />
“The Lord confirmed to both of us that he was calling us<br />
to each other.”<br />
Scott went back to New Orleans Baptist Theological<br />
Seminary and finished his master’s degree. Melissa continued<br />
with her college education at UCSB. She flew out to see<br />
Scott graduate from NOBTS in December of 1990. Scott<br />
proposed marriage to her that Christmas. To his delight,<br />
Melissa said yes. After a long engagement with multiple<br />
relocations for both Scott and Melissa, they ended up in<br />
Las Vegas doing ministry together. They were married on<br />
May 22, 1993 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Three children and<br />
eighteen years later, Scott and Melissa moved their family<br />
back to Scott’s hometown of Pearl. Scott has been the<br />
pastor at First Baptist Church of Pearl since 2012, and<br />
Melissa teaches at Park Place Christian Academy.<br />
<strong>Hometown</strong> <strong>Rankin</strong> • 17
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