December 10, 2023, 65, Mount Olive —
The Reverend Shelton Dean Whitman, at the age of 65, was called home to Heaven on Sunday afternoon, December 10, 2023.
Born June 6, 1958, in Wayne County to local parents, he grew up at stations around the world as his father served in the Army. On Easter Sunday in 1972, he received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and was baptized a year later. This started a journey that would shape the rest of his life as the man who prayed with him would later become his father-in-law. He met the love of his life, Wanda Gay Kunau, while he was in high school. He celebrated being filled with the Holy Spirit in the same year that he graduated high school: 1976. He married Wanda a year later on July 1, 1977, and spent 46 blessed years with her.
While employed with the City of Colorado Springs in Colorado, he felt led to answer the call to ministry. An on-the-job injury caused him to medically retire from the city and freed him to pursue his calling. In 1986, after completing a mail-order program from Berean Bible Institute, Shelton obtained his ministerial license with the Rocky Mountain District of the Assemblies of God. For the next five years, he served in pastoral positions at Lighthouse Assembly of God in Calhan, CO, Trinity Assembly of God in Kosciusko, MS, and Abundant Life Assembly of God in Julesburg, CO.
In 1992, Shelton moved his family to his paternal roots in Mount Olive, NC. Feeling led to carry on the heritage of his grandfather, Daniel Jonas Jones, he transferred his ministerial license to the North Carolina Conference of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church in 1997. He would later become ordained in 2004. He served in pastoral positions for the next sixteen years at Micro, Tabernacle, Liberty, and Sims Pentecostal Holiness Churches.
Shelton Whitman was known for his gentle and kind spirit, his good advice, and his listening ear. He was a peacemaker with a smooth, singing voice at home in Bluegrass and Southern Gospel. Even after sickness took his sight and most of his singing voice, the love for music never left him. He was a rock to his family and a source of encouragement to all who knew him.
Shelton Whitman is survived by his wife, Wanda Kunau Whitman, of the home; two daughters, Rebecca Jane Whitman of Mount Olive, and Melissa Ann Tallent of Rockledge, FL; his mother, Bertie Faye Jones Whitman of Mount Olive; three grandchildren, Abigail Joy Sausaman, Ariel Marie Sausaman, and Joseph William Alexander Tallent, all of Rockledge; two brothers, Larry Edward Whitman with wife, Robin, of FL, and Steven Mark Whitman with wife, Sherrie, of Mount Olive; and several nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, and cousins in his extended family.
He was preceded in death by his father, Ernest Shelton Whitman; and two infant brothers, Jonathan Steele Whitman and David Ernest Whitman.
A homegoing celebration of the life of Reverend Shelton Whitman will be held Saturday, December 16th, at 4 pm at Tyndall Funeral Home in Mount Olive. Officiating will be the Reverends Dave Eichacker and Danny Nelson. The family will receive friends during the hour before the service at the funeral home.
The family requests guests to please leave a note of memory on the Tribute Wall here and help themselves to complimentary copies of Shelton’s last CD at the funeral.
