Melba (Long) Hughes

Fayetteville

Mrs. Melba Long Hughes, 91 of Fayetteville went to her heavenly home on Monday, February 27, 2023.

A funeral service will be held at 11:30 AM on March 2, 2023 at Baywood Pentecostal Holiness Church with Reverend Jason Hughes, Rayford Dwayne Dunning, Jr., and Michael Stewart officiating. The burial will follow at LaFayette Memorial Park.

The family will receive friends from 10:30 to 11:30 AM on Thursday, March 2, 2023 at the church prior to the service.

Mrs. Hughes was born in Bladen County on July 5, 1931. She was a 1949 graduate of Tar Heel High School and earned her THB from Holmes College of the Bible in Greenville, SC. After earning her, degree, Melba went to work at Falcon Children’s Home and later a Cumberland County School Teacher Assistant for 30 years.

Melba was a 70 plus year member of Person Street/Baywood PH Church where she served on many ministries. She served as missions director for many years. While serving as missions director she and Jimmy built two churches in Africa and through the donations of others placed several other churches in Africa and other countries overseas.

She loved her Lord and Savior, was a true servant, and an excellent Godly example to her family.

She is preceded in death by her parents Ira Pope and Ethel Cagle Long, her husband of 57 years James T. Hughes, Sr. (Jimmy), four brothers, Henry, Bernice, Grady, and Lindy Long and four sisters, Marion Hill, Helen Nolan, Clara Hughes, and Doris Sherrill and a grandson Roger Owen.

Left to cherish her memory are her children, daughter Connie Dunning (Dwayne), son, J. Thomas (Ann), and daughter, DiAnne Averitte (Charlie); six grandchildren, Rayford Dwayne Dunning (Joanna), Jamie Dunning (Jessica),  Melissa Dunning, Jason Hughes (Amanda), Hunter Averitte (Ivy), and Maddison Womack (Josh); great grandchildren, Rayf, Emery, Sophie, Ethan, Asher, Isaiah, Madelyn, Sage, Ayden, Blake, and Olivia. And many brother and sister-in-laws, nieces and nephews.

Services entrusted to Butler Funeral Home, 6535 Clinton Road, Stedman, NC 28391.