The Reverend William Howard Perkins, Sr. (Cumberland Presbytery), 86, of Central City, Kentucky, died Wednesday, June 17, 2020. He was a retired Cumberland Presbyterian minister and a retired teacher from the Central City, Kentucky, school system.
William was born January 13, 1934, in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, to Stewart Henry Perkins and Carrie Maranda Bratton. He joined Central City First Methodist Church after being baptized by the Reverend Wade Weldon in the 1940s. He was educated in the public schools of Muhlenberg County and graduated from Central City High School in 1950. He was licensed to preach by the Methodist Church in 1950, before attending Kentucky Wesleyan College in Owensboro, Kentucky, graduating in 1956.
William attended Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1957-1958. William and Patricia Nell Garrett were married on January 10, 1959. They had two children, William, Jr., and Karen Renee, before William returned to school and completed his theological degree at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky, from 1965 to 1967. Asbury is an ecumenical and evangelical institution with deep roots and a rich history in the Methodist Church. William was ordained as a deacon in the United Methodist Church, Louisville Conference, and ministered in that denomination until 1967.
William came under the care of Princeton Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church on June 5, 1968, and was licensed on June 6, 1968. He was ordained at the Madisonville, Kentucky, Cumberland Presbyterian Church on October 27, 1968, by Princeton Presbytery. The Reverend James W. Elder preached the ordination sermon, the Reverend Carlton Hatcher gave the charge, and the Reverend James E. Talley asked the questions prior to ordination, gave the ordination prayer, and declared the ordination.
He received Teacher’s Certification Rank II from Kentucky’s Murray State University in 1973 and Rank I certification as well as a Master’s Degree in education from Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green in 1979.
William’s first pastorate was Bald Knob Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Quality, Kentucky (Logan Presbytery), in 1969. During his ministry, he also pastored Lewisburg (Logan Presbytery), Flat Lick in Fredonia, Kentucky (Princeton Presbytery), Barbee Memorial in Princeton, Kentucky (Princeton Presbytery), Bethlehem in Crider Station, Kentucky (Princeton Presbytery), Good Springs in Fredonia, Kentucky (Princeton Presbytery), Oak Grove Union in Clay, Kentucky (Princeton Presbytery), Wheatcroft (Princeton Presbytery), Poplar Grove in Sacramento, Kentucky (Owensboro Presbytery), and, lastly, Fairview near Central City (Owensboro Presbytery and, after middle-judicatory realignment, Cumberland Presbytery). After 1992, he is carried on the presbyterial roll of Cumberland Presbytery as “without charge” but never seems to have officially retired.
His death had been previously reported in error to have been January 8, 2018. It seems another “Bill” Perkins was reported dead in the Owensboro, Kentucky, area at that time.
