Ms. Cheryl L. Comans, the first daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Comans of Decatur, was helpful to me in my attempt to write about the Comans family. It is a bit more difficult when doing a phone interview, but it works, as more are learning to do it in this pandemic.
Cheryl L. Comans was born in June 1961 and grew up attending Decatur schools. At Decatur High School, she was a member of the BETA Club and co-editor of the annual. She also played basketball and tennis, becoming a semi-finalist in the Class B high school state tennis tournament. Cheryl was a high school and East Central cheerleader. She graduated in 1979 and 1981, from Decatur High School and East Central Junior College respectively. Also, while at ECJC, Cheryl was a freshman year tennis finalist in the State Junior College Championship and selected both years Most Outstanding Tennis Player for ECJC. At Mississippi State University Cheryl was extremely active in the intra-mural program and graduated with BA’s in Communication and Marketing. In 2009 she earned a Master’s Degree in Business from Delta State University.
Cheryl began her business career with the Mississippi State Employment Service in 1985, later becoming employed by the Mississippi Power and Light Company, which later became Entergy Mississippi, LLC. Within her 34 years at Entergy Corporation, Cheryl has held various positions across the Entergy territory beginning in Jackson, 1986-1991, Little Rock, Ark., 1991-2000, Vicksburg, 2000-2005, and currently Cleveland, where she has served as customer service manager over the Cleveland and Grenada areas since 2005.
She has been the recipient of numerous professional awards, such as being listed in the 2001 Mississippi Delta Business Journal Top 50 Women in Business, named the 2014 East Central Community College Alumna of the Year and has held a myriad of community leadership roles everywhere she has lived and worked, serving on boards, teams and councils. Some examples are, Cheryl was president of the Vicksburg Chamber of Commerce in 2004 and currently serves as president of the Cleveland-Bolivar County Chamber of Commerce.
Cheryl told me of some of her favorite memories of her father. At about age eight through thirteen, when she was not in school, she enjoyed day trips with him when he would travel to see customers for his furniture business.
She also shared, “I served as a page for him in Jackson when I was 12 years old. Though I was young, I was still able to grasp how a bill started and went through the process, sometimes coming out not looking at all the way it began. That week I learned how strong my daddy was for East Central. There was a funding bill that daddy supported.” She remembered how the president of the college, Dr. Charles V. Wright, was up in the gallery and recalled, “The more daddy talked, the more he shook his head up and down!” Mr. Comans succeeded in getting the funding the Decatur college needed.
Cheryl also began organizing estate sales in 1996, as a favor for a friend who worked overseas when his parents passed away and someone wanted to rent his house here in Decatur. He asked her and Carol Vickers, who were his parents’ neighbors, to pull it together. Her mother also helped her a lot the first twenty years with the business side of it. She has continued this venture, seeing the need, and says she does it to help others empty a house after the death of their parents. “I handle the business as if it were for my own mother and daddy.”
Cheryl told me of her salvation experience. “As a 9-year-old girl, doing what a lot of children do—you go down the aisle. But when I was 16 years old, I had a real drawing experience at Clarke Venable Baptist Church, in a revival. (The) Rev. Step Martin was the preacher. I struggled, thinking, ‘I’m already saved.’ Then at 19, I went with the Baptist Student Union group to Ridgecrest, where I came to the realization I was not. I prayed, asking the Lord to continue working on me. I walked the aisle and experienced the first peace I had ever had!”
She shared with me concerning Ms. Comans, “Mother had been saved at the age of 16 in a revival at Steele Baptist Church in Scott County. It was a real salvation experience, being led by the Holy Spirit. She saw to it that we three girls were well taught in the scriptures. mother had a strong hand in pressing on us girls to do our best to live our lives pleasing to the Lord.”
Cheryl told me of how her mother has had many health problems through the years. One situation, however, was a testimony to the faith of her mother and to the power of the prayers of many people who prayed for her.
In 1984, Ms. Glenda had acute glaucoma and was told she would lose her vision. Many prayed for her. It became a gradual healing, in which the eye pressure was improved every time the doctor checked it. The pressure finally was normal, with the doctor remarking that this was never supposed to happen. She had received a miracle.
Mr. Raymond Comans had his first heart attack in 2006, after which he had surgeries relating to an aneurysm. In 2016 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away Jan. 9, 2017. She shared that her father had made his profession of faith at Clarke-Venable Baptist Church after the marriage of her parents. Mr. Raymond and Ms. Glenda, both having served as Christians in their own lives, reared their girls to be active members of their church and valuable citizens in the community.
Cheryl told me, “Living alone, there are so many experiences that the Lord has brought me through. This corona virus…I had been driving back and forth [from Cleveland to Decatur] for many years caring for mother.” After trying for several years to get her into a nursing home in this area, she attempted to get her situated in a home near where she lived in Cleveland. She continued, “I began to pray in earnest probably six months before. God was so good. He moved ahead of me.” Cheryl leaned a lot on Proverbs 3:4-5 during this time. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.”
She was able to move her mother into the home in Greenville two weeks before the lockdown. With a deterioration of the spine and other physical problems at the present time, Mrs. Glenda Comans is also suffering the same loneliness of so many others in nursing homes now, unable to be visited by their families.
I thank God for the foundation of faith laid here in the Bible Belt by many families such as the Comans, on which we can stand to pray for others and activate in our lives the truth of scripture such as 2 Chronicles 14:7, in times like these.
Live for Jesus! He’s coming soon!
You may contact me at lagnesrussell@gmail.com or 601-635-3282.
