Joe Paul Whitten

Joe Paul Whitten, 91, of Big Spring passed away Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. The family will receive friends from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Friday, Sept. 24, 2021, at Nalley-Pickle & Welch Funeral Home. Funeral Services will be held at 10 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021, at First Baptist Church of Big Spring. Interment will follow at Trinity Memorial Park.

He was born May 30, 1930, in Muskogee, Okla.

Joe graduated from Muskogee (Central) High School, and married Virginia Lee Worrell, also from Muskogee. Virginia died in 2002. A few years later Joe was blessed when he met Ming Suie Lee of Big Spring, Texas. They were married in 2005.

Joe earned an undergraduate degree in music from West Texas State University and a Master's Degree in Vocal Performance from Texas Tech University.

For over 30 years, Joe directed music at multiple churches throughout Texas, including in Lubbock, Pampa, Ft. Worth, Tulia, Levelland, and Big Spring.

He also taught in the Howard College Choral Department for four years.

Outside of church, Joe had a special calling for ministering to inmates. In 1973, he began taking his church's youth choir on visits to Texas prisons. In 1984, he left church work and founded Joe Whitten Prison Ministries. For over 20 years, he toured the country with a choral ensemble of college-age volunteers he named "His Children." His first wife, Virginia, also toured as part of the ministry, sharing her personal testimony. The Prison Ministry witnessed to tens of thousands of inmates in both state and federal prisons from coast to coast.

Joe's prison ministry was one of the first to be formed in the nation and was eventually endorsed by the American Correctional Association. The Joe Whitten Prison Ministry literally opened prison doors when they were the first to be allowed to perform at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas. His group was also the first to sing and witness on Oklahoma's death row, as well as California prisons Soledad and San Quentin. The ACA invited Joe and His Children to perform multiple times at their annual congresses, and honored him with a volunteer award for special services to prisons, adding his name to a list of honorees that includes Andre Crouch and B.B. King. Joe and his wife appeared on well known Fort Worth evangelist Dr. Jimmy Allen's "Life Today" television talk show to share their experiences witnessing to inmates.

For many years, Joe was a member of The Centurymen, an auditioned men's chorus comprising professional church musicians from across the U.S. Joe accompanied the Centurymen on several international tours, most notably to England,