Trenia Amelia Fulton Reynolds

“A wife of noble character, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.” Proverbs 31:10.

She was so special that she requires two funeral services! That’s our sweet, dear Trenia Amelia Fulton Reynolds. She breathed her last earthly breath Tuesday, March 28, 2023, with her husband of 48 years, Bruce, and her daughter and son-in-law, Moni and Stuart Simpson, all at her side at Baptist Hospital in Oxford, MS, from complications associated with her quadriplegia.

The first service will be held in Oxford, MS, on Thursday, April 6, 2023, 11am-1pm visitation and a 1-2pm service at Oxford University United Methodist Church. In order to accommodate her Clinton area friends and teachers, there will also be a service held in Jackson, MS, on Tuesday, April 11, 2023, 2-4pm visitation and a 4-5pm service all at Wells United Methodist Church.

Trenia, the daughter of Audrey Clark Fulton and Arnold B. Fulton, blessed this world with her birth on March 2, 1955, in Jackson, MS, where she grew up and attended school. She and her family briefly lived in Orlando in 1971, where her sister Cindy led her on both adventure and misadventure much to Trenia’s delight. Her family then moved to Clinton, MS, where she graduated CHS in December of 1972.

Saturday, April 15, 1972, was a major day for her which forever turned her life upside down. It was her first date with her husband-to-be, Bruce (aka Buhba/Billy Clyde Tuggle/Stark/Buck) Reynolds. They attended a Stephen Stills & Manassas concert at the Coliseum in Jackson and claimed as their own the song “Johnny’s Garden” and the die was cast. A few weeks later at Ole Miss, where Bruce was attending college, it was “Dixie Week” in the Grove that beautiful spring weekend listening to Billy Joel, Fred McDowell, John Prine, and others that they fell in love…and in her own words, “Our fate was sealed.”

In January 1973, Trenia enrolled at the University of Mississippi in the School of Education following her calling in life of becoming a Speech Therapist. While pursuing her calling she and Bruce married on December 29, 1974, at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton. Although “One never graduates from Ole Miss,” she did receive her Undergraduate Degree in 1975, and later her Master’s Degree from the University of Mississippi under the tutelage of her dear friend and mentor Dr. Gloria Kellum, in the field of Communicative Disorders.

The couple moved to Clinton in 1974, where Trenia’s calling of becoming a Speech Therapist was realized and she accepted a position as the sole Speech and Hearing Therapist for the Clinton Public School District. What started as her vocation soon became her ministry. Trenia had a profound positive impact on her students and fellow educators for her entire professional life which spanned 40 years. Summing-up her passion for her calling, one of Trenia’s young colleague wrote:

“Trenia had the most influence over my work of anyone. The kindness, work ethic, intelligence, integrity, humor, were and always will be guiding principles in my work. She told me once how work was our ministry. But beyond work she gave wisdom and nurture. So thankful I got to call her friend and mentor “

And what a ministry it was to Trenia. Her impact on students-turned-professionals was tremendous over her four decades of ministry. She transformed shy, clingy children with any number of speech and hearing impairments into confident students who became doctors, lawyers, and one even the Captain of the Stanford Debate Team. She accompanied a student to Memphis after paving the way for him to receive a cochlear implant, and was present and honored to see the young student “hear” for the first time, thus changing the trajectory of his life.

She loved working with all her students, but the little ones always touched her the most, the little ones and the ones with the rare syndromes. She poured over research materials when she would screen and diagnose a child with a suspected syndrome. Then she would diligently work with the child, their teacher, doctors and family to provide that just right therapy to assist the student to achieve some sense of normalcy.

My God, she loved her students! She sowed her seeds early and often and those seeds grew and matured and are still growing in ways that dear Trenia could never imagine.

She was the recipient of many professional awards and accolades throughout her tenure, the most prestigious being the Outstanding School Clinician for the State of Mississippi in 2008, as presented by the Mississippi Speech and Hearing Association, the ultimate honor awarded in her field.

The beach, music, and travel were integral to her life. Just before her marriage she was introduced to ‘The Cabin,’ the Reynolds’ rustic beach cabin at Fort Morgan, Alabama. It later became a part of her very being. To her it represented solitude, good times, peace, romance, great music, fun, and nothing but positive vibes. Instead of a posh resort she chose to spend her honeymoon and as many anniversaries as possible at The Cabin. It was her Safe Place. She and her husband would walk the beach daily while there and it was always good. “Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore….” John 21:4

As life ebbed and flowed, the one certainty she knew she could rely on was the safety of The Cabin. But it will never be the same without her. She forever memorialized her love of the The Cabin and the beach with a cross stitch she did citing Bruce’s mother’s favorite poem “Sea Fever”- “I must go down to the sea again….”

In the infancy of her married life, she and her husband began listening to Jimmy Buffett and soon found themselves unabashed “Parrot Heads”, not just listening to his songs but literally traveling to those “little latitudes” and the places of which he sang. Be it Key West or most any island in the Caribbean of which Buffett crooned, Trenia traveled there by jet, boat, seaplane, water taxi, or a tall ship but never on a “tacky cruise ship.” She attended over forty concerts, traveling as far as Waikiki Beach to experience one.

Trenia loved ballet. She took lessons at Thalia Mara Hall and could strike a beautiful Plie’ but never completely mastered an Arabesque. She volunteered with the International Ballet Competition in Jackson and one of her greatest experiences in life was viewing a performance by the incomparable Mikhail (Misha) Baryshnikov, considered by most as the premier ballet dancer of all times. For her it was a high and holy moment.

She celebrated her 25th anniversary on Bora Bora as the drums across the motu beat wildly and the Tahitian ladies danced until 1999 expired and 2000 and the new millennium was ushered in. Pretty good stuff for a sweet, demure educator from Mississippi. But as much as she loved that trip to Tahiti, Hawaii soon became her favorite place. Though she never admitted it, it is believed that the intent of those trips was to seek out Tom Selleck, the ‘other’ love of her life. Five times she visited our 50th state and when all was said and done, Hanalei Bay on the Island of Kauai was her “one particular harbour.” So much so that her specific instructions were, “When I die, I want my ashes spread on Hanalei Bay like they did in the movie the Descendants.” And so they shall, for she’s just “A Hula Girl At Heart.”

Travel and music aside, her love for Ole Miss and in particular the football and baseball teams was epic. She loved the Grove and all its trappings but nothing stoked her more than attending a football or baseball game. She lived and died with each pitch or down. Extreme highs and debilitating lows. When a game was tight, the stakes high and the end was nearing, her heart would race faster and faster and she would inevitably get up and physically move to where she couldn’t see what was going on. Then it would be either the loud crescendo of unabashed fans screaming or the collective disappointed deep sigh that let her know if her beloved Rebels had won or lost. She cheered on her Rebs at almost all of the SEC football venues and attended almost all of the bowl games for the past half of a century. Trenia was there at Gameday in Oxford when her Rebels defeated the #1 Crimson Tide on national television.

She was introduced to Rebel baseball as a freshman at Ole Miss and loved nothing more than watching a game on a spring afternoon. She traveled to Omaha in 2014, and the next year all the way to UCLA to watch her Diamond Rebs. The UCLA trip was the last trip she was able to take as a result of her wreck. A huge regret for her and her family was her inability to travel to Omaha to see her “boys” clinch the National Championship.

An irony of ironies was Trenia’s embracement with the Chucky Mullins story. She was there the day Chucky was injured. She intently followed his treatment and recovery, cutting out and saving all related articles. She was at the Liberty Bowl when they wheeled Chucky into the locker room and he whispered the infamous quote, “It’s time!” She was there when he and his big ole smile were wheeled through the Grove for the first time. And yes, she was there when they eulogized him. So it was not surprising that as the paramedics were frantically trying to free Trenia from the wreck that she saw Chucky. Nor was it surprising when she again not just saw, but spoke with him in the Critical Care Unit when she was not sure if she would live or die and, upon seeing him, she said, “Chucky, if you can do it, I can do it.” And she did and she did it with great integrity.

As if work, Ole Miss sports, and travel were not enough, she welcomed her daughter, Moni, into the world in 1982. Her daughter’s name was a result of the couple’s trip to the beautiful and romantic Caribbean Island of Martinique. While in Martinique they visited a beautiful sugar cane plantation and rum distillery named La Mauny. The spelling was changed to accommodate the Southern tongue. Moni became another mission in Trenia’s life, and when Trenia was on a mission one can be assured that the mission would be successful. None could have expected what a successful mission Moni would become. Not just a great daughter, Moni was a best friend, confidant, counselor, and eventually caretaker to her mom. In all of Trenia’s great accomplishments according to Trenia, Moni was by far her crowning achievement.

An integral part of her life was Wells Memorial Methodist Church, an inner city church in Jackson. They first attended in the late 70s under the direction of Keith Tonkel, her beloved pastor and dear friend. For four decades she was a major cog in the human infrastructure of Wells. Always present, always behind the scenes quietly teaching children’s Sunday School, bringing exotic tropical fruit and other food to dinner nights, passing out food to the area residents at the food pantry, and always, always with ‘that smile’.

She was a volunteer for WELLSFEST, the church’s annual fundraiser for charitable causes. She left from volunteering at the event’s auction in September 2015 and was driving home on the interstate when she was run off the road by a tractor-trailer. The devastating wreck left her quadriplegic and her life was forever changed.

Trenia was one of the sweetest, kindest, most gentle ladies you will ever meet. But this sweet, soft spoken lady was the epitome of a Steel Magnolia. The wreck could not stop her from living her life to the fullest. Yes, the wreck rendered her quadriplegic, yes it put her in a wheelchair for seven and a half years never to walk on this earth again or be able to embrace her two precious grandchildren, Amelia and Ave. Yes, she was generally in some sort of pain ranging from not so bad to “help me.” But no, it did not, could not stop her will to live the best life one can live under such dire circumstances. And dire they were. She forgave the truck driver who caused her pain and she decided that she was not going to play the role of the victim. Never did she have a pity party. Not Trenia, not this 98 pound Steel Magnolia. “How did that big heart fit in that little body?” asked a dear friend. And Trenia was all heart.

Steel Magnolia or not, immediately following the wreck, she did not know if she was going to live or die and the prospects of living life with quadriplegia weighed heavily on her mind and tiny body. Her family did not know if she had the will to live, until a true miracle occurred. Moni was sitting with Trenia in the Critical Care Unit at UMMC when she asked Moni if she had told anyone about Moni’s pregnancy. Sitting in stunned silence, Moni passed it off as drug euphoria. Trenia persisted and as a result of her insistence, Moni found out she, indeed, was pregnant. When Moni confirmed to her mom the news she already knew, Trenia’s resolve to live was cemented and there was no way she was going to miss the birth of her precious grandbaby, Miss Amelia. Her family is convinced that this miracle, along with her vision of Chucky, are the reason she did not die at UMMC.

In November of 2015, she was flown via air ambulance to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta. Immediately before leaving Jackson, two doctors told her husband that she would never be able to talk, eat on her own, have a wheelchair, or even sit up. But as a fellow teacher, and dear friend, Kay said about Trenia: “You don’t know who you are dealing with!” Truer words never spoken. She was met at the door by Mrs. Shepherd after arriving and immediately fitted for a wheelchair. They literally performed miracles, with the help of God, at this house of healing. They prolonged her life and made it as normal and accommodating as it could possibly have been.

Trenia arrived in Oxford, again via air ambulance from Atlanta to Oxford in the winter of 2016, and her main goal each week after arriving was to make it to church. Initially at First Presbyterian Church, then settling at OU Methodist Church where both congregations truly accepted and embraced her and helped her to ‘walk her walk’ with such grace and integrity. There were many times during a church service when she required a Hydrocodone tablet, the congregation, unaware of the severe pain she was suffering. And as the congregants filed out past Trenia on their way out, all they saw was ‘the smile.’

Trenia was an extraordinary, modest, gracious, reserved lady epitomizing all the best attributes of a True Southern Lady. Her priorities were her God, her family, her church, then her students. In conclusion, paraphrasing Philippians 2: 3-4 describes in two versus who Trenia was: Trenia Amelia Fulton Reynolds did nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather she, in humility, valued others above herself, not looking to her own interests but always to the interests of others.

The family would like to thank the staff at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta. Special thanks also to Trenia’s caregivers, in particular, Annie McGee, Margaret ‘Mirt’ Bell, Tiffany Toliver, Cora Harper, Wykimberly King and Kimberly (Peachus) McEwen who will act as honorary pallbearers. Also, the staff at Baptist Home Health Care in Oxford, especially Lindsey and Elizabeth, her many doctors who attended her so faithfully and the staff of Baptist Hospital in Oxford, especially her three favorite nurses Brian, Sara and James.

Trenia is survived by her husband, Bruce, her beloved daughter and son-in-law Moni and Stuart Simpson, two grandchildren, Amelia and Ave Simpson (who prolonged her life), sister Cindy Sabo and her husband Bob, and Stepfather Bill Redding.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Shepherd Center:

The Shepherd Center Foundation

2020 Peachtree Road NW

Atlanta, GA 30309-1465

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