Final Passages  The Reverend Carroll Pickett leaves a grim
15-year legacy of very personal ministry: Granting the last
wishes of inmates, moments before their execution  By Carlton
Stowers  published: November 02, 2000  After review of your
taped senior sermon, I am convinced that your ministry is
destined to focus on the dying; lending comfort to those faced
with death and those who are losing loved ones -- From a written
evaluation of seminary student Carroll Pickett in 1956 For hours
the young man had paced his cramped quarters, alternately
talking in nervous, rapid-fire bursts, then falling into long
stretches of silence. Occasionally he would take a small bite
from the cheeseburger he'd ordered, but in truth, he had no
appetite. Finally, in an attempt to silence the maddening clock
ticking in his mind, he sat on his bunk and focused his
attention on the country music that wafted from a small radio
sitting across the way.  The man -- a convicted murderer
counting the hours before midnight, at which time h