I write songs
Obituary: Adrienne Howard / Methodist minister, comforter of the distraughtFriday, July 19, 2002By Dennis B. Roddy, Post-Gazette Staff WriterThe Rev. Adrienne Howard took the word of God atop the superstructure of a bridge where a worker was trapped and to the bottom of a smoldering pit where thousands had perished at the hands of terrorists."She didn't talk about it a lot. It really took a lot out of her," said her husband, Donald May.Pastor Howard, 57, pastor of the Allegheny United Methodist Church on the North Side, died of a brain aneurysm Tuesday, the day she was to appear before City Council to speak against a zoning proposal that would have restricted local churches from aiding the city's homeless with "drop in" shelters."I like to refer to her as the Mother Teresa of Pittsburgh," said May, who married Pastor Howard on Friday the 13th of October, 2000."She picked that date just to be funny," said May. "And because the Pirates season was over."A sense of humor was part of her survival kit.A 1966 graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan University, she earned a master's degree in divinity at Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, N.J., and another in sacred theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. She then served as an Air Force chaplain, attaining the rank of colonel. She trained as a counselor for disaster relief as part of a federal emergency response team.While working in Pittsburgh, she was called to the top of the Birmingham Bridge in 1978 when a worker's leg became pinned between two girders during demolition work. She remained at the top until a medical team arrived to amputate the man's leg to free him.In subsequent years, Pastor Howard was called to floods, the crash site of US Air Flight 427, the Oklahoma City bombing scene and to the scarred hillside in Somerset County where United Flight 93 crashed during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.She later was sent to Ground Zero in New York City to counsel workers there.Pastor Howard had planned to appear before City Council to explain her opposition to a zoning proposal that would have curtailed centers for the homeless on the North Side when she died unexpectedly.In addition to her husband, she is survived by two stepsons, Andrew and Charles; and a sister, Nina Jean Smith, of Cecil, Washington County.Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. today in Allegheny United Methodist Church, 114 W. North Ave., North Side. Private interment will follow in Claysville Cemetery, Washington County.
I was born the day they shot john lennons brain
And all my smiles are gettin in the hate generations way
Tell em Im gonna go out, shoot somebody in the mouth
First thing tomorrow
