Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2000 | 9:38 a.m.
The Rev. Ed Compton is retiring.
Compton, who helped change how the public perceives the homeless through 29 years of operating the Las Vegas Rescue Mission, has announced he will retire Nov. 11.
Compton and his wife, Beatrice, who ran the women's program at the church and shelter at 480 W. Bonanza Road, said they want to spend more time with their grandchildren and traveling the country.
"I'm 77 years old -- it is just time to step down," said Compton, who last year took emeritus status so that his hand-picked successor, the Rev. David Blacksmith, a one-time homeless fugitive whose life was turned around at the Rescue Mission, could get the feel of running the place.
"I'm just going to kick back and enjoy things, confident in where we (the mission) have been, what we are doing now and hopefully where we are going in the future."
A farewell party is planned for 6 p.m. Nov. 11 at the Suncoast hotel-casino. The public is invited. Admission is free, but donations will be sought at the door to offset the cost.
Compton, a founding Rescue Mission board member from 1971-74, became director in 1975 of what was a rickety storefront church and has turned it into a tidy multibuilding complex that stretches over two city blocks.
"I think it (retirement) is great for Pastor Compton because he has worked extremely hard the last 25 years and deserves to enjoy life," said Blacksmith, who served as pastor for Baptist churches in California and Vermont for nine years before returning to the mission where he was assistant director of men's services from 1984-90.
"No doubt it will be a challenge for me to continue the work, but I am not intimidated -- I'm confident because of the foundation he has laid."
Blacksmith said Compton played a major role in changing how the public, city officials and the police look at Southern Nevada's homeless and their plight.
"The image used to be of a 55-year-old man with a beard and a bottle of alcohol in his hand, while today the homeless are seen as everything from young men who have seen the bottom fall out of their lives to victims of substance abuse to families," Blacksmith said. "Today 40 percent of the homeless are women and children."
Blacksmith said that given the changing face of the homeless population, he probably will encounter situations on a regular basis that Compton rarely faced.
"We are seeing homeless single fathers and their children on a monthly basis, where in the past, we may have had such a situation once a year," Blacksmith said. "This will present challenges because shelters have not been equipped for such situations."
City officials have in recent years taken a more proactive approach to addressing the problem, something Blacksmith credits to the diligent efforts of Compton and others like him.
"As a result of what Pastor Compton accomplished, today there is a good atmosphere to solve things," Blacksmith said. "City officials are more open, more receptive to us."
Eighteen years ago, Blacksmith was a 28-year-old homeless and destitute man running from Massachusetts authorities. He had embezzled money, stolen a car and driven to Las Vegas, where he lost the money gambling and failed in two attempts to kill himself before going to the Rescue Mission on Sept. 5, 1982, as a last resort.
Through Compton's guidance, Blacksmith surrendered to Metro Police on out-of-state warrants. He was released five days later when Massachusetts authorities declined to spend the money to extradite him.
Nevertheless, Blacksmith worked and repaid the $6,000 he stole, and studied to become a minister, serving first as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Sonoma, Calif., in the early 1990s, and then as pastor of the Northshire Baptist Fellowship Church of Manchester, Vt.
Compton, who was ordained a minister in 1955, retired from the the Environmental Protection Agency in 1983. Compton, who continued to work for the EPA while running the mission, received the agency's Gold Medal for Exceptional Service for his work during the Three Mile Island nuclear plant crisis.
In 1971 Compton and five other Las Vegans founded the Rescue Mission, which at the time sheltered about 860 people a month. Today the facility provides beds for that many people -- and more -- each week.
In 1982, utilizing a work force of homeless architects, designers and laborers, Compton built the homeless women and children's shelter -- the first of its kind in the area -- behind the original mission building.
Compton prided himself on the fact that he never forced poor people to attend one of his religious services as a requirement to receive a free meal.
"We don't shove Christianity down people's throats," Compton said in a Sept. 16, 1984, Sun story on the Rescue Mission. "My role is more as a counselor."
In the summer of 1999, Compton decided to slow down, calling Blacksmith to tell him he wanted David to be his successor. Blacksmith's wife, Sheryl, has taken over for Beatrice Compton as director of the Rescue Mission's women's division.
The Comptons will take up residency in Hemet, Calif., but say they plan to make frequent visits to Las Vegas.
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