PASTOR

Nancy and Norman will be coming from Selma, where he has been serving the Epworth/Mountain Valley UMC charge on the Staunton District.
He retired from full-time service as an elder in the Virginia Annual Conference in 2016. He and Nancy returned home to Roanoke Rapids, N.C., that year to care for their mothers. He immediately began serving half-time as pastor for Wesley Memorial UMC in Warrenton, N.C., until they returned to Virginia.
They have been married 47 years. They have two grown children.
Their son, Norman “Trey” Tippens III, is married to Heather and they have a six-year-old daughter, Wrenna. The family lives in Pinehurst, N.C. Trey and Heather are psychologists in private practice. Trey served as a major in the Army until 2021. His military service was focused on treating soldiers with PTSD.
Their daughter, Mary Holtzclaw, is married to Cole Holtzclaw and they have two children, Finn, 6, and Coral Mae, 4. Mary is a mammographer who works in the mammography department at Sentara hospital in Williamsburg, Va. Cole is a building supervisor for a contractor in Virginia Beach. The family lives in Hampton.
Nancy was a student at Bob Jones University in South Carolina for one year before Norman coaxed her away and into marriage. During his pastorates, she has worked as a literacy director for Lunenburg County, Va.; a family support worker for the City of Hampton; and in Lexington was one of the initial group that started the Community Table, a restaurant-without-a-cash-register that feeds a restaurant-style meal each week to anyone who is hungry. She served as its director for several years and was named Volunteer of the Year in Rockbridge County. She is currently a volunteer at the Clifton Forge food bank and serves on the Advisory Board for the Salvation Army in Covington. Norman and Nancy at one time served as foster parents for at-risk youth.
Norman was ordained an elder in 1994, after earning his Masters of Divinity degree from Duke Divinity School in 1992. He served as a student pastor while at Duke. Previously he had been a student pastor/local pastor while earning a bachelor’s degree in ministry from Roanoke Bible College in Elizabeth City, N.C., in 1982; and a bachelor’s degree in English from Lynchburg College in 1988.
Student pastorates were in Charlottesville, Amherst County, and Lunenburg County. Upon graduation from Duke, he served Kenbridge UMC for five years. In Hampton, he served at Aldersgate UMC for three years and Wallace Memorial UMC for nine years. While in Hampton he was a guest religion columnist for the Newport News Daily Press. He was senior pastor at Trinity UMC in Lexington for six years before retiring.
He worked briefly at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. after graduation from high school in 1968, before joining the Army. He served three years, half of that in Turkey, in the Army Security Agency. Upon discharge, he returned home and was the sports editor for the Roanoke Rapids Daily Herald for six years before pursuing his call to serve Christ and the church as an ordained pastor.
He was born in Wheeling, W.Va., but the family moved to Hampton, where his father was an electrician at the shipyard. He was three when his father was killed in an accident at the shipyard, resulting in his mother moving the family of four to Roanoke Rapids, N.C. Nancy grew up outside of Roanoke Rapids, in Halifax County.

Director of Music Ministry

Dean retired from Hampton City Schools in June of 2015 after 35 years of teaching. He was the Choral Director and Instructional Leader for the Fine Arts Department at Hampton High School. Dean studied Music Education at Old Dominion University with a concentration in voice, piano and conducting. He later returned and studied Educational leadership. Dean also studied church music at Shenandoah Conservatory.

He is currently in his 49th year of Church Music Ministry and is presently the Director of Music Ministry at First United Methodist Church of Hampton, VA.