Despite the passing of nearly a half century, Connie Cunningham vividly recalls attending a 1954 Rev. Billy Graham Crusade as a 5-year-old, with her family in Nashville, Tenn.

Outside Paul Brown Stadium, Rev. Lance Cunningham and his wife, Connie, hold a photo of Connie, then 5, with her brothers Roy, 1, and Ron, 10, taken with the Rev. Billy Graham in Nashville, Tenn., in 1954. (Joseph Fuqua II photo) | ZOOM |

        The event is still special to Mrs. Cunningham's family because the Rev. Mr. Graham took special notice of her.

        Separated from his family during that year's tour, the Re. Mr. Graham remarked to an aide on stage that the young Connie Graves resembled one of his daughters and then arranged for her, and brothers Roy and Ron, to meet with him for a photo and short chat.

        “Even though I was young, I still remember how kind he was,” said the 52-year-old Mason resident, minutes before she was to work Thursday evening as a counselor at the Rev. Mr. Graham's mission at Paul Brown Stadium.

        The photo was featured the next day in a Nashville newspaper. Later, the family received a print and it has helped further inspire the deeply devoted family in later decades to work as officials in various Southern Baptist churches.

        “The photo is a treasure to us,” said Mrs. Cunningham, whose husband, Lance, is the pastor of the Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Kenwood, where she works full-time as an outreach minister. “If our house were to catch on fire, it would be the first thing I'd get.”

        “That was a great thing to have happened in our lives, and that one event has stayed with all of us,” she said.

        Her father, Truman Graves, a pastor, worked the 1954 revival as a counselor, a role she is honored to replay this weekend.

        “This is so special for me. My father was a counselor and now so am I,” she said.

        More than 4,000 counselors, locally trained for the Graham mission, will assist those who come forward during the event, getting personal information that will be quickly relayed to their local pastors for follow-up.

        Though she doesn't expect to meet personally with the Rev. Mr. Graham during his four-day revival in Cincinnati, she still feels a bond with the religious leader who looked into her eyes 48 years ago.

        “We have loved him because of his ministry and his integrity he has brought to all Southern Baptists,” said Mrs. Cunningham.

        The Rev. Mr. Cunningham said: “We've grown up with Billy Graham and have always admired him.”
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