Squire Parsons Jr., 77, one of America's great gospel singers, was quietly returned to the hills and hollows of Newton, West Virginia, for burial while the nation's great gospel groups played homage to his dedicated life in Asheville, North Carolina in a memorial service.

We drove to Laurel Point Cemetery to his final resting place beside his parents, where his old country friend John Howard Taylor, a Spencer mortician, completed his last rites, accompanied by his immediate family, Squire going on to his "Sweet Beulah Land."

I first eyed Parsons at his Newton Baptist Church singing with his dad Squire Parsons, Sr. and family while being a funeral director in Spencer during the 1960s. Country boys, bright eyed John Howard Taylor and Squire came to Spencer each seeking their calling.

My wife Ellen Dianne Starcher Weaver sang with Squire in the Spencer High School choir, his beautiful baritone voice bouncing against the walls.

Maybe Squire was destined to be a star, growing up in a backwoods holler known as Hollywood.

While death purports the end of natural life, the gospel singer minister, was a lifting experience for those of us still hanging around.

"I'm kind of homesick for a country
To which I've never been before.
No sad goodbyes will there be spoken
For time won't matter anymore."

"Beulah Land (Beulah Land) I'm longing for you (I'm longing for you)
And some day (And some day) on thee I'll stand (Someday we will stand)
There my home (There my home) shall be eternal (Eternal)
Beulah Land, sweet Beulah Land."

Thanks be to Squire for his life, his words and his contemporary gospel music.