Carol Peyton Minshew, 56, a resident of Lake City, Florida, passed away on Friday, August 30, 2013 at the Suwannee Valley Care Center (Haven Hospice). She was born in Memphis, Tennessee to Betty Ann {Smith} and the late Charlie V. Peyton, and had lived here in Columbia County for the past 8 years. Carol was a graduate of Christian Brothers College (now University) in
Memphis with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.
She was an outside plant engineer with South Central Bell in
Memphis from 1979 -1990. During that time, she helped her
husband plant Lake Forest Baptist Church in Walls,
Mississippi. Appointed with her husband as a career
missionary by the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board in
1990, she went to Portugal and learned that language. She
served alongside her husband in Angola, Kenya and Namibia.
While in Kenya, she served as a lecturer at the Kenya
Baptist Theological College. The Minshews returned to the
United States in 2004 when political issues prevented their
continued service in Namibia. During their years here, she
was an incredible support to the ministry of the Wellborn
Baptist Church where her husband, Dr. Donald Minshew, is
senior pastor. She found some of her greatest joy in life as
a mother, supporting Dennis who has excelled as a swimmer
with Gator Swim Club in Gainesville and who is in his
freshman year swimming for Columbia High School. She was preceded in death by her sister, Karen, and her grandparents: Robert and Annie Smith. She is survived by her husband, Dr. Donald Minshew; son, Dennis Minshew of Lake City, FL; brother, Scott (Donna) Peyton of Madison, MS; and nephew, John Peyton of Madison, MS. A visitation for the Minshew family will be September 7, 2013, 10 AM to 11 AM in the Lea & Simmons Funeral Home in Brownsville, Tennessee before the funeral service at 11, with Dr. Danny Sinquefield of Trinity Baptist Church in Bartlett, officiating. Interment will follow in Trinity Cemetery, Nutbush, Tennessee.