In Memory of Mike Hinton

I paused and waited for some more appropriate person to write this memorial, to not rush ahead of someone better suited for the task. But like Elihu of old, “the spirit within me constraineth me.” About 4:30 a.m. one morning I had to get up and set down some thoughts in writing.

Samuel Michael “Mike” Hinton was born May 8, 1943, in Washington, DC, to Grover L. Hinton and Violet Denson. He was a grandson of the legendary Sacred Harp singer, teacher, and composer Thomas Jackson Denson. The Denson family created the Sacred Harp Publishing Company, and revised the 1911 James Edition of The Sacred Harp. Outliving his cousins Amanda Brady and Richard Mauldin, Mike was the last Denson family member serving the publishing company. He passed from the walks of this life at age 82, on Friday, July 18, 2025.

Mike had a long-term military career (retired from the U. S. Army Medical Service Corps, with the rank of Colonel), and became very active in the Sacred Harp Community after his retirement. Mike traveled widely and became a great and much-loved ambassador of good will for the Sacred Harp tradition. I believe that the addition of the words “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound” to No. 146 in the 2012 Cooper Edition of The Sacred Harp rose as a good-will response to that kind of good will displayed by Mike. He liked add those words to the song when he led Hallelujah.

Among other things, Mike Hinton served as Chair of the Texas State Convention (1996, 2015), the Southwest Texas Convention (2008), Rusk County Convention (2016), and Coker Singing Convention (2008-2011). Around 2012 the Coker Singing held at Mike’s church was “consolidated” into the Texas State Convention, which singing’s location was moved to the Coker Church in San Antonio, Texas. Mike was treasurer of the Texas State Convention at least for 2020-2024 (according to minutes where I found it mentioned, but possibly longer). In 2002 Mike Hinton was elected President of the Board of the Sacred Harp Publishing Company, and served in that capacity until his passing in July of 2025. In 2018, during Mike’s tenure as president, the Sacred Harp Publishing Company Board of Directors unanimously approved a revision of their 1991 Edition of The Sacred Harp (which will become available in September 2025).

I admired (even envied) Mike’s ability to prepare and present a moving memorial lesson. We asked him a number of times to conduct the memorial lesson at the East Texas Convention. Now he becomes a subject in rather than a presenter of our lessons. Surely some lessons will include that song he so loved:

And let this feeble body fail,
And let it faint and die;
My soul shall quit this mournful vale,
And soar to worlds on high.

Give joy or grief, give ease or pain,
Take life or friends away,
But let me find them all again,
In that eternal day.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

And I’ll sing hallelujah,
And you’ll sing hallelujah,
And we’ll all sing hallelujah,
When we arrive at home.

Friend, you have arrived at home. We’ll keep singing “Hallelujah” down here, knowing you are singing “Hallelujah” up there – where you may now say with experience rather than hope, “My Father’s house on high, Is my eternal home.”

Please remember Mike’s family in your prayers, and remember him when you sing.

Hallelujah

My Eternal Home

Additional information: Mike will be buried with military honors at Ft. Sam Houston National Cemetery on Wednesday, August 6th at 11:00 a.m. A Celebration of Life Service will take place at Coker Global Methodist Church in San Antonio, Texas on Saturday, October 4th at 10:00 a.m. A reception at Coker will follow this service. See Obituary.

---

Note: In 2016 Mike served as Chair of the Rusk County Singing Convention, a combined Christian Harmony-Cooper Sacred Harp Convention. I also remember Mike serving as Chair of the Smith Memorial Convention, but did not find the records to show what year or years.

Youth, remember God

Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3 In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, 4 And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; 5 Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: 6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. 7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

In beautiful figurative language, Solomon expresses to the youth what some of us are learning by experience. The body, like a pendulum, gradually loses its force and life comes to a halt. Let us all, especially the youth, use this wisdom to guide us in the way we should go.

Sin is a reality. The bulk of the figurative description is the first section of Ecclesiastes 12 describes the frailty of the body -- the body ravaged by age, which is the effect of sin. God made Adam and Eve and placed them in the world He had made -- the world that was good. By Adam sin entered the world, with it and all the groaning and travailing of all creation, including our bodies. Eyesight begins to fail; the legs, arms and back go out; ears do not hear; teeth wear and rot and fall out; the body does not sleep; perhaps interest in life itself dissipates and flies away. Sin entered the world, and death by sin (Gen 2:17; Rom 5:12). Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

Death is a certainty. The Bible makes this clear, as does our experience. There is "a time do die" (Eccl. 3:2). There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked...to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not -- they shall die (Eccl. 9:1-6). An old Latin proverb says, "Death is certain, life is not." Ecclesiastes 9:1-12 is a vivid illustration of that. Oh, so many seem so certain in life and of life, but we know not what a day brings forth. It is appointed unto men once to die.

Youth is an opportunity. With this reality of sin and this certainty of death, remember now thy Creator -- in the days of thy youth. George Bernard Shaw, "Youth is wasted on the young." Some of us middle-aged to older folks readily jump on that bandwagon, thinking how the youth may have strength and zeal without knowledge. As well he might have said, "Old age is wasted on the old," for we with knowledge are losing our strength and zeal (and our teeth and our eyesight and our hearing!). Biblically, each season of life has its place in God's design (David said, I have been young and now I am old). Here Solomon points us to that fall season before the silver cord is loosed and the dust returns to the earth. The living know that they shall die. Often we don't live according to that knowledge. The simple truth of Ecclesiastes 12 is to live like you know your going to die. The nuanced truth is that if you are young, take it to heart and don't wait until you get old to remember God. Psalm 90:12 ...teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

While in the tender years of youth,
In nature's smiling bloom,
Ere age arrive, and trembling wait
It summons to the tomb:--
Remember thy Creator, God;
For him thy powers employ;
Make him thy fear, thy love, thy hope
Thy portion, and thy joy. (Thomas Gibbons)

Death does not affect all men in the same way, but it affects all men. How will it affect you, my friend?