By Inside Warren Staff

In 2018, Rev. Dr. Frank Fowler was inducted into the Warren County Hall of Fame. He was a unanimous choice of the committee that year. Although he downplayed the honor, it was a recognition well deserved—and embraced by the community. 

Rev. Dr. Fowler passed away on Friday of a rare degenerative brain disease. He was someone who touched so many lives as the pastor at Trinity Methodist Church in Hackettstown for the past 35 years and now the entire community mourns his loss.

“He made attending church something kind of magical as a kid,” recalled Melanie DeStefano, now in her 30s. “He would call us down front for Children’s Time and he had a Mister Rogers kind of presence, talking directly to us so that the whole congregation behind us melted away.”

In a statement, the Hall of Fame committee said, “There was no better choice than Rev. Dr. Fowler as a member of the Hall of Fame. He epitomized everything you’d expect in a Hall of Famer.”

“I couldn’t think of anyone that had a greater impact on our community in my lifetime,” said Assemblyman and former Hackettstown Mayor John DiMaio. “He will be sorely missed.”

Rev. Dr. Fowler grew up in Hackettstown, attending the same church in his youth that he would later lead.

He was known for organizing charitable initiatives through Trinity. With his leadership, his church sponsored mission trips in the United States and Haiti, bringing goodwill to those in need not just in the region here, but elsewhere.

Locally, he organized support for the Hoving Home Women’s Shelter in Oxford Township, and the Lord’s Food Pantry. Nationally, there was the Midnight Run, for which congregants collect clothing, bags of toiletries, and food to distribute to the homeless population in New York City, and trips to rural Appalachia to repair homes for low-income families.

In 2010, Rev. Dr. Fowler was in Haiti with 14 parishioners on the church’s annual mission trip to provide medical supplies and donations to local orphanages when a devastating 7.0 earthquake hit. The harrowing experience did not deter him from returning again and again.

That was just who he was, determined to bring light into the world wherever he went. And that he did.

Rev. Dr. Fowler is survived by his wife, Karen; his five daughters, Faith, Angela, Christina, Savannah, and Emily; and several grandchildren.