By BY LYDIA GRIMES – Features Writer
Dan Shaddock grew up in east Texas and, although he has lived in many places, he now calls Brewton home.
Shaddock is the new CEO of the Greater Brewton Area YMCA, coming here only a few weeks ago. He has been with the YMCA since 1986, leaving a full-time Baptist minister's position. He is very excited about his new job at our local "Y" and remembers the first time he saw it a few years ago.
Shaddock was raised in a similar small town in east Texas. He grew up with two brothers and worked at his father's sawmill at an early age.
Shaddock graduated from Burkeville High School in 1958 and, like most Texas boys, played all kinds of sports. After graduating from high school, he entered Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas with the idea of majoring in civil engineering.
Those plans were to be sidetracked as higher forces were about to enter his life.
Shaddock graduated from Lamar University in 1962 and entered Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at Ft. Worth, Texas. He left there prior to graduation to do an internship at First Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga. as a part-time pastor. He completed his education and received a master of divinity degree at the Columbia Theological Seminary at Atlanta, Ga.
He was called to his first full time pastorate at First Baptist Church of Forsyth, Ga. and served there for 6 1/2 years and then moved to Dunedin, Fla. where he served as pastor of North Dunedin Baptist Church until 1986.
In 1986, Shaddock was led to leave the pastorate to continue his ministry in Nashville with the YMCA as Chaplin and director of financial development. He was asked to join the national staff of the YMCA in 1989 as a consultant and later moved to Louisiana to continue his career with the YMCA. He was the CEO of New Orleans YMCA and the vice president of the Baton Rouge YMCA.
Shaddock is married and they have six children and 14 grandchildren scattered from Texas, Florida and North Carolina. His wife, Sandra, is postmaster in Louisiana and will stay there until her retirement in the spring. They have elderly relatives there that they help, but she does plan to join him in Brewton. Until that time, he is trying to adjust to living in a small apartment without her.