Rebuilt church gym honors fallen Marine

When the pastor’s wife looks down the church’s hallways, she still remembers the blackened walls, a melted gym floor and a charred wooden ceiling caused by a fire set by a troubled boy.

But on Sunday, that memory will be transformed. Glad Tidings Assembly of God’s rebuilt gym is being dedicated to a former church member and Marine who was killed in Iraq.

“We ended up all right,” said Pastor Chuck Trimborn’s wife, Julene. “I guess God knew something. Now we can dedicate it.”

The gym’s new floor is shiny and slick, the cinder block walls are back to gleaming white and soon a 3-foot-by-5-foot picture of Darrel J. Morris will hang above one of the replaced basketball hoops. The plaque outside the door will also bear his name.

Morris was a member of the church’s youth group, and the gym was one of his favorite places to spend time.

“He loved to play a number of ball games in here,” Chuck Trimborn said, then listed off basketball, volleyball and broom hockey. “He loved it, and he had so much fun in there.”

The site of those fond memories was marred two years ago. On June 2, 2005, Christopher Fairfax – a student at The Oaks Classical Christian Academy, which met at the church – broke in after midnight and used gasoline to set it ablaze.

Fairfax was arrested three months later and pleaded guilty to second-degree arson. He was sentenced to 52 weeks probation and 150 hours of community service.

In January of this year, 21-year-old Morris was killed during his second tour of duty in Iraq.

The Trimborns attended his funeral at Ferris High School along with hundreds who turned out to honor the fallen young Marine.

On Tuesday, the church pastor and his wife talked about how Morris came to their church as a teen and was a member for nearly six years. He was one to cheer for the underdog, Julene Trimborn said. As an example, she talked about a broken wooden chair that Morris used to fix routinely with duct tape. It was the chair he sat in during the youth group sessions.

“He just wouldn’t let us throw it away,” she said, pointing to a picture of him and the silvery-taped chair.

“Everybody is special, but there was just something extra special about him.”