[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 89 (Tuesday, June 21, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H4337-H4338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            IN RECOGNITION OF TWO MEN FROM HOBBS, NEW MEXICO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
Mexico (Mr. Pearce) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, this past weekend I had the opportunity in 
Hobbs, New Mexico, to attend two services, recognition ceremonies for 
people from Hobbs. First of all, we were able to attend the retirement 
for Dr. Dean Mathis, who pastored Taylor Memorial Baptist Church for 36 
years, same preacher, same church. That is just not heard of these days 
in America.
  All teachers are required to do two very difficult things. They are 
required to push our knowledge base to the extreme limits of what we 
are able to know; but simultaneously to that, they have to stay 
grounded in truth. In other words, you can't just teach out to the edge 
of the learning envelope. You also have to stay grounded in the 
timeless principles that cause things to be relevant and true. Dr. 
Mathis did this with extreme care and with a delicacy that I found 
always attractive. He was able to bring biblical lessons to life in our 
personal lives and bring relevance to these teachings.
  I think that also he perfected community participation at all levels. 
From his one small congregation there in Hobbs, New Mexico, we have 
city counselors, county commissioners, judges, two State 
representatives, a State senator, and a U.S. Congressman.
  Now, that says a lot, coming from one small corner of the State of 
New Mexico. But his life didn't end there. He also had two missionaries 
check in

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from very difficult parts of the world. They were on Skype and checked 
in at the ceremony, saying that if it hadn't been for his teachings, 
that they would not have been there.
  Dr. Mathis and his wife, Betty Sue, dedicated their lives to the 
spiritual calling. And without those spiritual teachings in our society 
today, we find our society is drifting towards moral chaos. We are 
dealing with those problems here in this Congress as we deal with teen 
pregnancies, with hunger, with people who are wasting their lives on 
drugs and taking extraordinary amounts of Medicaid.
  So we deal with the problems of a society that is becoming all too 
secular and forgetting that no matter what we pass as laws here that 
there is a moral component to every nation and that if we ignore that, 
we ignore it at our peril. I would like to give my congratulations to 
Dr. Dean Mathis and his wife, Betty Sue, for their years of service.
  But then on the same day, we were able to recognize Carl Mackey. Carl 
Mackey was a few years younger than me and passed away at too early an 
age last year. Carl Mackey was a community leader. He was one of the 
friends, one of the many people that my mom had in class. She used to 
talk about Carl and said, Carl is really mobile. That meant Carl was 
walking up and down all the time during classes. Carl was actually one 
of her favorite students.
  Now, I know Mom and Carl both personally, and they probably did not 
agree on one philosophical issue: Carl was a hard-core Democrat, 
community activist, black leader. Mom just was conservative, raised a 
conservative family. But they identified each other across that chasm 
of philosophy to recognize that there aren't many differences in us 
accept the human nature that says that everyone should have access to 
justice, to mercy, and to kindness. So it was in that that this young 
junior high student and Mom formed a relationship that continued until 
he passed away.
  I was able to visit with Mom about their relationship this last 
weekend, and she still remembers it with a smile. When I was elected 
and Carl Mackey was serving, Carl and I, again, overcame all the 
supposed difficulties, the things that we did not see eye to eye on in 
our philosophies. But we did see eye to eye in having him represent a 
piece of the community that is often forgotten. That was the community 
that I grew up in, the southern part of Hobbs, the part of Hobbs that 
did not get its fair share of funding, fair share of justice.
  So Carl was a constant voice, reminding all of us that we need to 
stop, slow down just a bit, and pay attention to the small guys in 
society. He will be greatly missed, and Dr. Mathis and his wife will be 
greatly missed. But I thank the community of Hobbs, taking the time to 
honor two different people, completely different backgrounds, 
completely different lives who weren't so different after all.
  In the end, we are all Americans, and we're here for a better 
America. I salute them both.

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