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Health & Fitness

NorthStar Pastor Inducted into Morehead Alumni Hall of Fame

Congrats to NorthStar Church community pastor Marlon Longacre for being inducted into Morehead State's Hall of Fame!

Our NorthStar In The Know reporter Lee Wilson recently caught up with NorthStar's Community Pastor Marlon Longacre.

Marlon Longacre has served as the Community Pastor at Northstar Church since 1999 and is at the forefront of the team responsible for the footprint Northstar is leaving in the Kennesaw-Acworth community. Longacre dedicated himself to a lifetime of community service, and insists it’s still his true passion.

”I was born to do this kind of work and I love it,” said Longacre. “I still love what I do more than anything in the world. I was called to do it.”

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Longacre has been a personal success story and does his best to promote humbly the idea of service. His collegiate alma mater, Morehead State University, felt the need to recognize his body of work and on October 21, 2011, inducted him into the Alumni Hall of Fame.

“I was humbled to be inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame. It is humbling that they recognize your work,” he said. “There are a lot of people who are doing a lot of great things from Morehead State, so it is humbling for sure.”

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The former Eagle was also honored for his achievements by Fairdale High School, which he attended, and as Longacre notes it means a great deal to him.

“It’s pretty cool to be nominated by your hometown and by your college,” said Longacre. “I see myself as a missionary from my hometown, and it’s just cool that they are paying attention.”

While the induction is certainly a humbling and gratifying experience for Longacre, he would rather be known in a different way.

“More than anything, if I am going to be recognized, I just want to be known as Jim and Darlene’s kid,” said Longacre. “I just want to honor them, because I had good parents. It means more to honor them.”

Longacre’s recognition comes at the precipice of the holiday season, in which he and the Northstar leadership team are already starting to gear up for Christmas and Thanksgiving and all of the events that go along with it at the church and in the community.

Longacre, who is also finishing up the high school football season as North Cobb’s team chaplain, is also plotting out his 2012 goals to revolve around a project that is centered on Partners in Education.

“I really want to focus on getting more vocational programs back in schools, so we can get vocational skills back up,” said Longacre. “We have worked on that specifically at North Cobb High School and now we have around 190 kids in vocational classes. “

Additionally, Longacre is focusing attention on the technological development of education for special needs children. A father of three special needs children himself, Longacre added, “That’s near and dear to me.”

On that front, Longacre pointed out that some of the work that Northstar and the community have already done is starting to pay dividends, such as the special needs sports complex in Acworth. Longacre said he believes programs such as these have brought more families with special needs children to the area.

“We did work to get them here, and now they are here,” he said. “Let’s go out and work on improving other things for them now and keep it moving forward.”

As anyone can see, Longacre is a tireless community servant with a resume riddled with credentials worthy of things like his recent Hall of Fame induction. However, as he is quick to point out, “You don’t do this for recognition.”

So how can we thank people like Marlon? How can we repay those before us who have created a better place for us? Simple, just follow his lead: get involved, and keep it moving forward.

Check out all that Marlon and NorthStar are doing in the community and get involved. Go to www.northstarchurch.org and click on the In the Community tab.

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