Rev. Robert J. Hulse

Memorial services for the Rev. Robert J. Hulse, 78, Emporia, will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, Emporia. Cremation is planned. Private burial will be in Memorial Lawn Cemetery, Emporia.
Pastor Hulse died Thursday, March 19, 2009, in Emporia.
He was born May 6, 1930, in Strang, Neb., the son of Harry Arnold and Therese Harriet Wilhelms Hulse.
Pastor Hulse earned a Bachelor of Arts from Midland Lutheran College in August 1955. He attended Central Seminary in Fremont, Neb., and received a Master of Divinity from the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.
He joined the U.S. Air Force in December 1950. After basic training he attended the Army Language School in Monterey, Calif., where he learned the Russian language. He was transferred to Chanute Air Force Base outside Chicago where he studied weather observation. He was reassigned to the National Security Agency in Washington, D.C., where he translated messages on weather conditions from Russian into English. Mr. Hulse was honorably discharged from military service in 1954.
Upon ordination on May 13, 1958, the Rev. Hulse served a two-point parish at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Pilger and Stanton, Neb. He also served at Emmanuel Lutheran Church at Lawton, Okla., and at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, Emporia, from 1965 to 1981.
He later served in parishes at Advent Lutheran in Olathe, Christ by the Lake Lutheran in Bull Shoals, Ark., and at a congregation in Broken Arrow, Okla. After retirement, the Rev. Hulse served part time at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Cushing, Okla.
He was president of the Lyon County Mental Health Association and a board member of the Kansas Lutheran Campus Ministry and InterLutheran Ministry, the Mental Health Center and Pioneer Mental Health Services. He served on the board of Bethany College, the Minority Ministry Task Force of the Synod, Commission on Ministry of the LCA, and Good Samaritan Homes of Olathe.
He married Verienne E. Johnson on July 24, 1951, in Bruning, Neb. She survives.
Other survivors include three sons, Jeffrey, Olathe, Timothy, Overland Park, and Robert, Lawrence; a daughter, Susan Pedersen, Emporia; a brother, Ronald, Nebraska; a sister, Rosemary Dageforde, Nebraska; and seven grandchildren.
The family suggests memorials to St. Mark’s Lutheran Church and Friends of the Emporia Zoo, sent in care of Roberts-Blue-Barnett Funeral Home, 605 State St., Emporia, KS 66801.