Alex Paul
After his ordination Saturday as a deacon in the Roman Catholic church, Skip Malone was asked how he should be addressed.
“Mr., Reverend…what?”
“Well, my kids have that figured out already,” Malone said with a smile Sunday morning after officially assisting with his first Mass under the Rev. Father Andrew Harris. “They said they were going to call me D.D. for Deacon Dad.”
For Malone, 65, the road to ordination was a long and winding one, with many interesting sights along the way.
Born in Tacoma, Wash. in 1937, Malone said he attended Mass out of a sense of duty for many years even though he and his wife, Sharon, were active in church-supported activities such as taking in unwed mothers for many years.
God’s call came and went unanswered several times over the years, Malone admitted.
“I had thought about becoming a deacon years ago when I was working as a air traffic controller in Simi Valley, California,” Malone said. “I had my job, I was going to school and we had five kids. So, it got put on hold.”
A 1955 graduate of Franklin Pierce High School in Tacoma, Malone joined the Air Force at 17 and spent most of his tour of duty in Moses Lake, Wash. and Mezt, France. There, he enjoyed traveling throughout Europe on a bicycle, a hobby he has cultivated to this day.
“I biked through Europe, painted and checked out churches,” Malone said of those days.
Returning stateside, Malone met Sharon Phipps, also of Tacoma. They wed Feb. 4, 1961.
“Our friends and relatives knew each of us but we didn’t know each other,” Sharon said as the smell of her famous homemade bread wafted from the kitchen throughout their home.
“Sharon was more into religion than I was,” Malone admitted. “She really drew me back into it on a deeper basis.”
Malone took the air traffic controller skills learned in the military and put them to use with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration).
The family spent six years in California where he worked at Burbank and VanNuys airports.
“We were busy,” Malone said. “The most planes landing in one day was 3,600 and the most in one hour was 400.”
Air traffic controllers handle their job stress in different ways. Malone turned to hobbies, many of which he maintains today. He learned to make telescopes, trap shoot, golf and build radio-controlled model planes.
In 1978 the family moved to St. Joseph, Mo. where Malone worked for three years before culminating his career at Kansas City International Airport.
In 1984, with 30 years of combined military and FAA service, Malone retired. The family moved to Sweet Home because they had always loved visiting relatives here.
Their two youngest children, Wendy and Vern, both graduated from SHHS. Vern still holds the school’s pole vault record.
Although retired, Malone took on part-time jobs to supplement his retirement income including operating the SHEM food bank, taking in 36 foster children over five years and assisting with Linn County Mental Health for 2 1/2 years.
Again, Malone thought about the deacon program off and on, but pushed the desire aside due to his commitments.
Realizing that he had to make the leap of faith soon or be too old for acceptance into the program, Malone finally pinpointed his goals and started on the road to becoming a deacon in 1999.
“A year after I first applied, I started attending meetings, at first they were twice a month,” Malone said. “Then, I started college at Mt. Angel Abbey and drove four to five days a week.”
Malone said his first year back in the classroom was torture.
“I had to learn to study all over again and I have to admit that I hadn’t made up my mind about starting the second year until the day classes began,” Malone said. “Then, when I got back into the rhythm, I enjoyed it so much.”
Malone said he was somewhat intimidated by the younger students at first but grew to admire them. He was among seven men ordained Saturday. The ceremony included 25 priests and 30 deacons in Portland.
“They were brilliant people,” Malone said. “I made a lot of friends there.”
Malone’s program was completed in May 2001 but he continued to meet monthly at the Portland Archidiocese.
How has life changed for Malone?
“I’ve learned so much about my faith and what it really means to me,” Malone said. “I pray a lot more and I look at things differently. I have a better feeling toward people and I’m not so quick to judge others. Catholicism is not a faith of denial. We don’t deny the pope nor do we deny the Bible.”
Malone said he has learned to truly “feel the presence of God when I go to church.”
One of Malone’s favorite classes was moral theology, he said.
“It’s where your virutes and morals are brought out. It came to light that I had fallen into those traps myself,” he said. “For example, you can’t take an evil and turn it into a good such as the atomic bomb and abortion. Our morals in this country have been glossed over so much that we don’t recognize them anymore.”
Malone said he is both excited and scared about his new religious duties which include weddings, baptisms, funerals, assiting with the Mass, reading the gospel and working with the parish sick and shut-ins.
His wife has been fully supportive from the beginning, Malone said.
“In fact, wives have to sign a permission slip when their husband starts the program and just before he is ordained,” Sharon Malone said. If Malone is widowed, he is expected to remain single now that he is a deacon.
The reaction of the Malone children, all grown, ranges from indifferent to excited.
“My friends have asked me why I started a new career at my age,” Malone said. “God has given me so much I need to give back.”
Sharon Malone beams with pride when she talks about her husband’s new calling.
“Skip has such a big heart. He enjoys what he’s doing. When he first told me about his decision, there was a leap of joy in my heart.”
Malone called his ordination, “One of the greatest things that has happened to me.”