Frank Pomeroy
| Frank F. Pomeroy
(Pastor of the Sutherland Springs Baptist Church which was attacked by a deranged gunman in 2017) | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1966 Place of birth missing Resident of Seguin |
| Political Party | Republican |
| Spouse | Sherri Brown Pomeroy
Children: |
Frank F. Pomeroy (born 1966)[1] is the pastor of Sutherland Springs Baptist Church, a small Southern Baptist congregation in Sutherland Springs in northern Wilson County, south of San Antonio, Texas.
Background
On November 5, 2017, Devin Patrick Kelley (1991-2017) of New Braunfels, who had earlier been denied a handgun permit, fatally shot twenty-six people and wounded twenty others in an attack on the Sutherland Springs church. Texas Governor Greg Abbott called the massacre the worst ever in Texas. U.S. President Donald Trump described the massacre as "a mental health problem."[2] The calamity was the fifth worst mass shooting in the United States and the most fatalities ever in a shooting at a place of worship.
Reverend Pomeroy and his wife, the former Sherri Brown, were out-of-state at the time of the shooting, but one of their daughters, Annabelle Renae "Belle" Pomeroy (2003-2017), a seventh grade in Seguin, Texas, was among the fatalities in the mass shooting and is interred at Sutherland Springs Cemetery.[3]Kelley was subsequently killed by an armed citizen. The damage to the church was so extensive that the congregation decided to raze the structure and rebuild.
Candidacy for state Senate
In 2019, Reverend Pomeroy announced his candidacy for the District 21 seat in the Texas State Senate, which encompasses all of Atascosa, Bee, Caldwell, Dimmit, Duval, Jim Hogg, Karnes, La Salle, Live Oak, McMullen, San Patricio, Starr, Webb, Wilson, Zapata, and Zavala counties and a portion of Bexar, Guadalupe, Travis, and Hays counties. As the Republican nominee, Pomeroy faced in the general election on November 3, 2020, the incumbent Democrat Judith Passas Zaffirini (born 1946) of Laredo, who has held the seat after defeating state Representative William N. "Billy" Hall, Jr., in the 1986 Democratic primary for the state Senate. Zaffirini since has rarely faced a competitive opponent in her safe-Democratic district .
Regarding his Senate campaign, Pomeroy said:
I feel as though, win, lose, or draw, at least I can say I did my part to the best of my ability to bring civility, godliness, and hopefully intelligent discourse to the political arena, … If I can bring civility and godliness and help stymie the downward spiral of the great state of Texas, that's what I am choosing to try to do," Pomeroy said at his announcement. "I feel as though morality and integrity [are] disappearing rapidly and I feel as though as the direction goes, if Texas falls, the country falls ...[4]
Pomeroy said that he will keep the church as his foremost priority regardless of the outcome of his campaign. He lost the race to Zaffirini, who mobilized her Hispanic voter base, 166,919 (60 percent) to 110,825 (40 percent).
References
- ↑ Frank Pomeroy. Intelius.com. Retrieved on May 6, 2020.
- ↑ Jason Hanna and Holly Yan (November 7, 2017). [https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/05/us/texas-church-shooting-what-we-know/index.html Sutherland Springs church shooting: What we kno]. CNN. Retrieved on May 5, 2020.
- ↑ Annabelle Renae "Belle" Pomeroy. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on May 5, 2020.
- ↑ Gerald Tracy (August 25, 2019). Longtime Sutherland Springs Pastor set to run for Senate seat as Republican. News4SA. Retrieved on May 5, 2020.
