[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 10, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E888]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      IN CELEBRATION OF PASTOR SIDNEY R. CRAWFORD'S 101ST BIRTHDAY

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                      HON. SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR.

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 10, 2019

  Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise today to extend my 
sincerest congratulations and Happy Birthday wishes to an inspirational 
leader and true man of God, Pastor Sidney R. Crawford, who celebrated 
his 101st birthday on Wednesday, June 6, 2019, with his family and 
friends.
  Sidney Richard Crawford was born on June 6, 1918, in Bonneau, South 
Carolina to the union of the late Mr. William Henry and Mrs. Mary 
Elizabeth ``Lizzie'' Hodge Crawford. He graduated from Berkeley County 
High School in 1937 and went on to attend college in Spartanburg, South 
Carolina.
  In 1941, he married the love of his life, Ms. Iva Elizabeth ``Betty'' 
Harper, in Heath Springs, South Carolina. That same year, he responded 
to God's call to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, by becoming an 
ordained Baptist Minister at Emanuel Baptist Church in Summerville, 
South Carolina. He pastored several churches in the Charleston and 
Summerville areas until 1947, when he decided that he wanted to serve 
not only his community, but his country. That year, he enlisted in the 
U.S. Army and honorably served his country for seven years. In 1954, he 
was called back into the ministry to preach in Adamsville, Alabama. 
Over the years, Pastor Crawford successfully balanced the role of 
Pastor at several churches in Alabama and Georgia until 1970, when he 
decided to return to college to enhance his studies. His hard work and 
dedication paid off in 1972, when he graduated with a degree from 
Charleston Southern University. But even with his newfound wealth of 
knowledge, he continued pastoring in churches and teaching at schools 
in South Carolina.
  George Washington Carver once said, ``How far you go in life depends 
on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, 
sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong 
because someday in your life you will have been all of these.'' Pastor 
Crawford has advanced far in life because he never forgot these lessons 
and always kept God first.
  The race of life isn't given to the swift or to the strong, but to 
those who endure until the end. Pastor Crawford has continued to run 
the race of life with zeal and dignity and God has blessed him over his 
lifetime.
  Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues in the U.S. House of 
Representatives to join my wife, Vivian, and me, along with the almost 
730,000 people of Georgia's Second Congressional District, in honoring 
an outstanding citizen and man of God, Pastor Sidney R. Crawford, for a 
lifetime of selfless service to God, the church, and to humankind. We 
extend our best wishes to him on the occasion of his 101st birthday and 
without reservation exclaim: To God be the Glory.

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