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Lassiter celebrates 60 years as a priest

By Melodie Woerman

Editor, The Harvest

For 60 years the Rev. Arleigh Lassiter has celebrated the Eucharist, preached the Gospel, visited the sick, buried the dead, married couples and baptized babies. He has seen a lot of ministry since his ordination as a priest on May 5, 1945, by Bishop Robert Spencer of the Diocese of West Missouri.

The parish where he currently serves as long-term supply priest, St. Martin’s, Edwardsville, honored Lassiter with a special dinner and service May 5 of this year to mark his milestone anniversary. The small church was filled to overflowing with parish members, clergy from the dioceses of Kansas and West Missouri, and community well-wishers who came to celebrate the occasion with him.

Canon to the Ordinary Jo Ann Smith represented Bishop Dean Wolfe at the service and presented Lassiter with a special certificate of recognition for his many years of ministry.

Lassiter, who is 84 years old, noted that this celebration was a little more low-key than the one that marked his 50th golden anniversary 10 years ago. That one took place at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City, Mo., where Lassiter was ordained and where he served as canon pastor for eight years. But this one was even better, he said, “because I’m with my people.”

Service in two dioceses

Lassiter’s first post after graduation from seminary at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. was in Maryville, Mo. There he restarted St. Paul’s, which had been dormant for 35 years. Lassiter also worked at St. Mary’s, Savannah, and at St. Oswald’s-in-the-Fields, near Skidmore. Later, Lassiter became curate of Christ Church, St. Joseph and served as rector of Church of the Good Shepherd, Kansas City, for 18 years.

He was rector of St. Luke’s, Shawnee from 1978 to 1985 and was vicar at St. Francis, Overland Park from 1985 to 1995.  He also was a member of the Standing Committee of the diocese for a three-year term in the early 1980s.  He has been at St. Martin’s since 1994.

Although slowed by a stroke last year, Lassiter continues to conduct services there. He sits in a chair instead of stands and uses a walker in processions. Parish members gently assist him as he steps to and from the altar.

Lassiter said he was blessed to be able to baptize a great-granddaughter and is waiting to do the same for a great-grandson. In an interview with the West Missouri Spirit, the newspaper of the Diocese of West Missouri, Lassiter said, “I don’t really believe it,” he says. “I didn’t expect to live this long.” Lassiter has been married to his wife Betty Lou for 58 years. The couple has two children, Charlene Lassiter, of Wichita, and Cheryl Ball, of Olathe.

Lassiter is also celebrating his 38th year of being sober. He told the West Missouri Spirit that he has been blessed in that he can be around alcohol without the temptation becoming too great. He is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. “God has given me a very relaxed and easy sobriety, for which I’m deeply grateful,” he said.

Bill Bell, editor of the West Missouri Spirit, contributed to this story.