Hilton announces engagement on her 40th birthday
Sought to promote racial unity through Gospel
Paris Hilton got an extra-special present for her 40th birthday: She’s engaged.
Hilton revealed Wednesday that her boyfriend of more than a year, Carter Reum, popped the question after surprising her with a private island getaway trip to celebrate her milestone birthday with close friends and family.
“When you find your soulmate, you don’t just know it. You feel it,” Hilton wrote in an Instagram post. “As we walked to dinner along the beach, Carter led us to a cabana adorned with flowers and dropped to one knee. I said yes, yes to forever. There’s no one I’d rather spend forever with ... Here’s to Love – the Forever Kind.”
Reum, a 40-year-old entrepreneur and venture capitalist, enlisted Jean Dousset, the great-great grandson of French jeweler Louis-françois Cartier, to design a diamond ring Hilton described as “breathtakingly beautiful.”
Before the Rev. Walter Lee Peggs Sr., pastor of Fullview Missionary Baptist Church, died on Feb.12 at age 74, he had an idea of the faces he would see in the afterlife.
He’d see faces like those of the racially and ethnically diverse choirs and congregants from the eight churches who gather for the Bartlett Community Celebration, an annual celebration that he helped found.
“We talked about the fact that this was what Heaven looked like, and when we come together we have different complexions, different beliefs, different backgrounds, different economic statuses, but we are all one in Christ Jesus,” said the Rev. Warrie Williams, Fullview assistant pastor.
“When we come to that understanding, it’s beautiful.”
That legacy of unifying the Bartlett community through the Gospel is a powerful one that Peggs, who died of pancreatic cancer, leaves behind, said the Rev. Danny Sinquefield, pastor of Faith Baptist Church.
Sinquefield, who knew Peggs for 26 years, co-founded the celebration. It’s a night of fellowship in which eight churches unite for singing, musical performances and preaching.
“It started with us talking about bringing our two churches together,” he said. “It was just a spark of his spirit. Then we thought: ‘Why do two churches when we could do seven or eight?’”
“It got bigger ... it really had a spark, and it was in the spirit of our people. I always called him the Pastor of Bartlett.”
Besides leaving behind a legacy of trying to promote racial unity through Gospel, Peggs also became the first Black postal worker in Germantown and served on Bartlett’s Planning Commission. He also served as pastor of Fullview for more than 36 years.
Peggs is survived by his wife, the Rev. Wilma Peggs; sons, Walter Jr. and Brian, and countless family members and friends.
Services for Walter Lee Peggs Sr.
Visitation for Peggs will be held Friday, Feb. 19, noon to 6 p.m., and Saturday, Feb. 20, from 9 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. at Fullview Missionary Baptist Church, 7100 Memphis-arlington Road in Bartlett.
Funeral services will be held Saturday, Feb. 20, at noon.
Attendees are asked to wear masks and to practice social distancing. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that memorial contributions be made to the Fullview Missionary Baptist Church Foreign Missions Ministry.
For more information, go to fullviewbaptist.org/.
You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Tonyaa Weathersbee at 901568-3281, tonyaa.weathersbee@commercialappeal.com or follow her on Twitter @tonyaajw.
TOPEKA, Kan. – Bob Dole, a former longtime senator and the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, announced Thursday that he has been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.
Dole, 97, said in a statement that he was diagnosed recently and would begin treatment Monday.
“While I certainly have some hurdles ahead, I also know that I join millions of Americans who face significant health challenges of their own,” he said.
Dole received an immediate outpouring of sympathy, prayers and well wishes from across the political spectrum.
Retired four-term Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, a Republican, predicted that Dole would fight cancer “with his usual grit and determination.”
Dole, a native of Russell, Kansas, represented the state in Congress for almost 36 years before resigning from the Senate in 1996 to challenge Democratic President Bill Clinton. Dole had unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination in 1980 and 1988, and he was President Gerald Ford’s vice presidential running mate in 1976.