Tim Gentry
Posted on 08/01/2015 6:12:42 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
* Gentry worked with children at the Shandon Presbyterian child development center
* A children’s home in India will be named after him when completed next year
* The Clemson grad was preparing to go to nursing school
Tim Gentry was the kind of guy who could look into a person’s heart and see what was good, even if they couldn’t see it themselves.
That’s the way his younger sister described her brother — as “a shining soul,” who always had a smile on his face and a kind word for everyone he met.
Gentry, 32, was gunned down on a street near his home in Columbia on Tuesday, cutting short a life of service to others and dashing his plans to propose to his girlfriend, his sister, Jessica Turner, said.
He was the son of Robin and Dr. Doug Gentry, a family practice physician in Clemson.
“He wanted to make the world a better place and to glorify the Lord every moment of it,” Turner said. “That was his purpose in life was to share his faith.”
The Columbia Police Department was continuing to investigate the case Friday, reviewing surveillance videos from near the scene and following leads to a person meeting the description given by witnesses, spokeswoman Jennifer Timmons said.
“We continue to investigate the motive surrounding the incident,” she said.
Turner said her brother’s wallet was missing, but the family has no other details about what happened.
He had spent the day with his girlfriend, Maegan Reeder of Columbia, to whom he was “just about to propose,” his sister said.
He had driven home, to the 1200 block of Beaufort Street, when he was attacked at around 1 a.m., according to police.
The department put out a possible description of a suspect – “A thin, dark-skinned black male with a medium build, last seen wearing a white tank-top style shirt and dark pants. He appeared to have short braids or dreadlocks.”
Turner said she’s sure her brother would have no malice toward his assailant.
“We have no hate for the man or woman who shot him,” she said. “We know Tim would want him to know that there was something more to life.”
He had a heart for mission and meeting needs in places around the world, having spent time in Peru, Tanzania and India for that purpose his sister said.
He had been quietly contributing for the past five years to an organization called Fuel India and helped develop a children’s home program there, working remotely since visiting villages in India five years ago, his sister said.
The organization has decided to name the children’s home, which is to be built next year, after him, she said.
“We didn’t even know he was contributing to this children’s home,” Turner said.
After graduating from D.W. Daniel High School, he earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Clemson University in 2009.
He was an employee of the Hispanic Assistance and Bilingual Language Access Project at the University of South Carolina, a translation and interpretation center that worked closely with child protective services.
He also had been a personal care aide for a man in Columbia for about two years and was very involved in his house church, which originally had been connected with Mountain of Worship, his sister said.
“His relationship with the Lord was the most important thing in his life,” she said.
In Columbia, he also worked with children at Shandon Presbyterian Church’s child development center.
He was taking courses in preparation for going to nursing school.
“Every decision he made was based off of what would glorify the Lord,” Turner said. “And it changed the decisions he made and his relationships.”
Turner felt as though she could almost hear his voice as she described him. One thing in particular stood out: his laugh.
“He had the best laugh,” she said. “He was always laughing.”
Timothy Peter Gentry is survived by his parents; two brothers, Benjamin Michael Gentry of Augusta, Georgia and Jonathan David Gentry of Pasadena, California; two sisters, Jessica Suzanne Turner of Charleston and Abigail Marie Gentry of Chicago
And by his betrothed, Maegan Reeder of Columbia.
Memorial services were held Saturday afternoon at Clemson Presbyterian Church.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Fuel India at www.christuniversalmissions.webs.com
that’s like the grinch carving the roast beast... it would take a major miracle
Getting tired of this.
White lives matter, eh?
When is the march on DC, I’ll be there.
Getting tired of this.
I wish I lived my life as this man is said to.
I just wish I did.
Tim Gentry
PS to my own post: Hey, black people, this is why people don’t want to be around you. THIS IS WHY.
This is very surprising to have happened in Clemson SC. Especially now. School’s out, so the University is mostly empty, and without that population Clemson. it’s a sleepy SC town.
I have a buddy that owns an auto repair shop down there, and the reasons his parents moved down there was to get away from the violence in Charlotte.
Very sad.
It would be more like #ChristianLivesMatter
We can and should take consolation that something like this looks quite different on heavenly books than it looks on the world’s books.
And maybe on a slightly side rant, if God seems to be pie in the sky, is it the real problem that you pushed Him off of your plate and never even bothered to look for another serving?
PCA - Presbyterian Church in America (conservative to moderate) for those keeping track.
Read again - the murder was in Columbia, not Clemson.
There seems to be a sub-meme going there that somehow black people have got to be mean to avenge... well, a mix of tragic history with a bunch of trumped up and made-up stuff.
This sin is not just a black people’s sin, it is a human sin.
Oh Crap, well that make perfect sense. Columbia is pretty much a $hit hole.
Sorry for the misread all.
For that matter, has Gov. Haley given a tearful press-conference with the victim’s friends and family, or does that only happen when the national news networks are interested in carrying it?
Clemson appears to be a nice, safe city, as you said => http://www.city-data.com/city/Clemson-South-Carolina.html (Demographics available at link)
Columbia has 10 times more going for it than Clemson, unless you consider tractor pulls as a cultural event. Clemson - - where the men are men and the farm animals are nervous.
Oh please, I’ve been to both.
Columbia is as bad as Charlotte’s become. It’s a liberal run crime ridden cesspool.
I love Charlotte, it’s my hometown, but I wont live there again fore the same reason.
Also Clemson is close enough to Greenville / Spartanburg for there to be plenty to do.
You’ve been to both and that makes you an expert, huh? Columbia may be more liberal than the upstate but the violent crime rate is lower than Greenville. In fact it has the lowest crime rate of any large city in SC. Look it up. You know nothing. I live in Columbia. Moved here from Pittsburgh three years ago and it is nothing like you portray it. You probably think Pittsburgh is still full of steel mills. Some people don’t understand how cities change. Columbia is experiencing a building boom that is unprecedented at this time. It might have been the “$hithole” you claimed sometime in the past, but those days are long gone. On the other hand, Clemson will be a dump forever.
Yep Charlotte tried the same building boom, and light rail, and every other liberal pet project they could find.
Closed all the public housing around downtown, and sent all the ferals out to the suburbs to rob and kill out there.
Compared to Pittsburgh, I’d say it does seem like paradise.
I know nothing. Right. I was born in 1964. When I graduated HS in 1982 Charlotte’s population was a smidge over 100,000, and Columbia was 30-40,000
Now Charlotte’s metro is 3.5 million. It looks all shiny uptown, but I’ll give you a hundred dollar bill if you (assuming you’re white) can walk down Tuckaseegee Rd on a Friday night and live to tell about it.
All the cities in the south are going the way of all the cities in the north. Columbia’s no different, except it’s a Capitol like Raleigh, and cops do clean the streets a little better so the politicians are protected.
You think I like living in the country? BS I would love to be back in the city with the great restaurants, and music, and museums, but I’m not going to live somewhere I have to carry just to walk out of the door in the morning.
My definition of a nice city in SC, Charleston beats them all.
Darlington ain’t bad either.
Again, you are showing your ignorance. Pittsburgh is an amazing city to live in. It is a boomtown at the moment because of the amazing growth in oil and gas industry due to the Marcellus Shale, but the town is also a recognized center for education and medicine. It has been voted America’s most livable city several times in the last decade. It has low crime and an affluent populace. Both Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh medical facilities are world class. I grew up in Columbia during the 60’s and Columbia was much bigger than the 30-40,000 that you mention and I also own a home outside of Charlotte on Route 73, so I have been going to Charlotte most of my life. Big cities have big city problems, but that doesn’t mean it’s a $hithole. There is more crime in small towns in SC than big cities, especially drug related and property crimes. Charleston has higher crime than Columbia. The only reason the crime statistics appear to be lower is because Mt. Pleasant, with very low crime, is included in the Charleston numbers. You may be right about Charlotte, but you are wrong about Columbia, and it has nothing to do with trying to protect the politicians as they are the biggest criminals of all. I never said Columbia was a paradise. After living in Pittsburgh for 25 years I find Columbia boring as hell, but it is an up and coming town whether you believe so or not.
Lots of black on white violence in Columbia...college town, lots of young naive white privilege to beat on.
It’s not ignorance, it’s opinion.
I’ve been to or through Pittsburgh hundreds of times, as a matter of fact I’ve been to all 48 states, Canada, and Mexico.
I think I see why we have such a difference of opinion.
You say you have a House on 73 outside of Charlotte.
If I had lived up by Lake Norman I might see the city differently. If you have lived in equally nice places in Columbia, and Pittsburgh, good. I didn’t
I grew up between Freedom Dr, and Wilkinson Blvd. It was an ok neighborhood in the 70’s. By the 80’s we had a shooting every day in West Charlotte.
I got out. Went Southeast, to Indian Trail, which also used to be nice and is now overrun by Illegal Immigrants, Lived in Waxhaw for a while same story.
My Dad lived in the same house until he died a couple years ago. Try visiting your dad, not sure if you’re gonna be hit with a stray bullet walking from the car to the driveway, because the park at the end of his road is run by gangbanging drug dealers.
One of my best friends was shot and killed in Charlotte. He was black, and the guy who shot him was black. I cried with his Mama, and carried him to his grave and still have a hard time talking about it. This was in the 90’s. He was killed, shot in the head from under his chin from behind. Blew the whole top of his face off because he wouldn’t let the guy dance with his date. His Mama couldn’t even open his casket. The guy who killed him got 7 years. 7 f-ing years.
Please don’t tell me how much better crime rates in the city are compared to the country. I’ve seen it, and lived it.
Where I live now there have been 5-6 murders in 75 years.
Try living in that environment for 40 years, and I bet your attitude, or opinion becomes a little more jaded like mine.
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