Page 20 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2021- Online Magazine

Exceptional
Odell Farr
The Carpenter's Son
by Gene Shelburne
f you have read your New
Testament, you know that Jesus
Iwas both a carpenter and a
preacher. So was Odell Farr.
Even before Odell said “I do” to
lovely LaVonne Woody on July 21,
1962, they intended to devote their
lives to ministry. They met one
another and fell in love while they
were involved in church activities.
Church mattered in their lives. A lot.
For them, pastoring was not a way
to get rich or famous; it was a way
to serve the Lord and his people.
Having grown up as a small-town
boy in places like McCamey and
Monahans, Odell was delighted
to spend most of his adult days
pastoring small churches.
The Farrs started their years
of ministry in a tiny church in
Breckenridge, Texas. Like most
beginning ministers, however,
they migrated to several other
congregations. The list included
churches in Roswell, New Mexico,
Farmers Branch, Texas, and
Unionville, Indiana – before Odell
settled down for the long haul in
Littlefield.
As Odell’s pastoral skills were
growing, so was his family. The
Farrs welcomed sons Jon and
Mark and daughters Dayna and
Deborah into their home. Those
20 Lubbock Senior Link
SENIORS
were good years,
Odell recalls. With
four athletically
active kids under
his roof, he found
himself umpiring
baseball and
refereeing basketball
and volleyball, and
he says he loved it.
More important, no
doubt, his kids loved
having him there to
do it.
one of his talented brood is doing.
The Farr offspring characterize their He’ll tell you about son Jon, who
dad as a guy who loved family (no doubt, largely because he grew
and not just his own children. up in a carpenter’s home) serves in
Daughter Dayna says hardly a day Habitat for Humanity. Or Dayna,
passed when they didn’t see Odell who (having been raised by a
reaching out to check on his parents preacher) serves on a church staff as
and siblings, or to someone in the a children’s minister. Or Mark, who
large passel of aunts and uncles (also the product of Bible-believing
and cousins who make him kin to and teaching parents) coordinates
half the people in Texas (at least by worldwide Bible translation in
marriage, if not by DNA). hundreds of languages. Or Deborah,
who has been an admissions
Now grown and producing counselor for LCU (where her
grandchildren for Odell and husband is an English professor)
LaVonne to spoil, each of the and now for LCHS (where her kids
Farrs’ children has compiled attend school). All four of them are
an assortment of remarkable walking in the footsteps of their
achievements, too numerous to incredibly devoted and capable
cite here in detail. Suffice it to say father.
that they’ve made their parents
immensely proud. If you have an Like a jillion of their colleagues
hour or two to kill at Starbucks, before them, though, Odell and
just ask Odell to tell you what any LaVonne learned early in their