ASHES: INVESTIGATION IN CHURCH FIRE IS CONTINUING

THEBES, Ill. -- Monroe Norris looked at the concrete steps that led to what used to be the entrance to the Rock Springs Free Will Baptist Church.

"We'll rebuild," said Norris, a deacon and Sunday school superintendent at the church, which was leveled by fire sometime early Monday morning. "We'll start as soon as the fire marshal completes his investigation."

David Bandera, Illinois state fire marshal, sifted through the ruins Tuesday. "There's not much we can find here," said Bandera, "There are no walls standing, and it'll be difficult to establish just where or how the fire started."

Bandera was called in by the Olive Branch Fire Department.

"We don't suspect any foul play concerning the fire," said Olive Branch Fire Chief Rich Masterson. "We call in the fire marshal any time a school, fire or business burns."

The church, situated about four miles from Olive Branch in Rock Springs Hollow, burned some time before 8 a.m., said authorities.

"We received a call about 8 a.m.," said Masterson. "When we arrived the church had been leveled."

The church, which was moved to its present site in the mid- to late-1970s, had a membership of about 55.

"Our congregation was organized more than 50 years ago," said Norris, who had attended the church Sunday night. "But we didn't have our own building until about 1955."

The frame church was originally about a quarter-mile across the road from its present site, said Norris. "But a creek was located behind the building and was beginning to erode beneath the back of it," he said. "We moved the building."

A construction project was under way at the church.

"We were adding an extension which would have housed four Sunday school classrooms," he said. "Only recently we completed a kitchen area to the back of the church."

Norris; his wife, Georgette; Sonny Denton, another deacon of the church; his wife, Doris, and daughter, Melissa; and church member Leo Beasley were all at the site Tuesday.

"We'll hold Wednesday prayer meeting at our house," said Georgette Norris. "We hope to arrange for a temporary meeting site before Sunday church."

"This isn't the first time we've had a fire at the church," said Monroe Norris. "Several years ago, vandals broke into the church, piled up some furniture in front of the altar and set it afire."

Someone noticed smoke, and church officials managed to put out the blaze.

That was on the night of Jan. 12, 1983. "Vandals broke into three churches in the area that night," said Norris. "One of the churches Alexander County Free Will Baptist Church, located at Twente Crossing near Olive Branch was destroyed by fire that night. On the same night vandals broke into the Beech Grove Church located near Tamms."

Robert Ferrzer of Wickliffe, Ky., is pastor of the Rock Springs church.