Ace of Trades: 'That summer changed my life'
WARSAW – He’s a pastor – and a registered nurse – with an unusual background.
“Starting in 2012,” explained Jimmy McNutt, “I helped to start and pastor two churches in northeast Ohio. I also became the chaplain of a fire department in Ravenna, Ohio, I helped with chaplain duties at Robinson Memorial Hospital, and became the chaplain for the Akron RubberDucks – the Double-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians.
“While doing all these things,” he continued, “I also decided to go back to school at Kent State to get my RN. When I graduated, I became an ICU nurse at Summa Hospital in Akron. In 2020 my unit became designated as the COVID ICU of the hospital. Through all the waves of COVID I was privileged to walk with patients and families through some of the toughest days of their lives and for many of my patients their last days. I remained at Summa until recently when I moved back to Coshocton to oversee the Camp Echoing Hills program.”
Today McNutt is the recreational services and outreach director at Echoing Hills.
“When they approached me with the position,” he said, “my wife and I felt God confirm his desire for us to be here. It also helps that my wife loves this organization. We met here and were married on the grounds 15 years ago.”
“He even proposed to me at camp during a sports retreat event,” remembered his wife, Maria McNutt. “So it only seemed appropriate we got married at camp since we met and fell in love here.”
Now 39, Jimmy McNutt grew up in Harrison, Ohio, a rural suburb of Cincinnati. He graduated from Harrison High School in 2001, Moody Bible Institute in 2007 and Kent State in 2019.
“As I was growing up in Cincinnati,” he recalled, “I knew I wanted to have a job where I would help people. While I was in high school, I spent summers volunteering with the Muscular Dystrophy Association in Cincinnati as a counselor at their summer camp. That experience was the initial catalyst pushing me into serving people.
“Yet like many people, I was very indecisive,” he added. “I bounced from university to university changing my major multiple times. While I was at Bowling Green, I was recruited by a Camp Echoing Hills representative to be on summer staff. That summer changed my life.”
He spent the next three years working for the organization until he left in 2006 to study to be a pastor at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Now at Echoing Hills, his role at the Warsaw campus will focus on bringing the gift of recreation to people with developmental disabilities in new and unique ways.
“When I watch Jimmy serving,” assessed his wife Maria, “whether sitting with someone or providing personal care, what I see him doing is giving that person value. He’s saying they matter to him and to Jesus. And that’s beautiful.”
“I do it because I love it,” McNutt responded. “And I consider it a calling.”
Echoing Hills Village, Inc. is located at 36272 County Road 79 in Warsaw. For more information, call 740-327-2311 or log on www.ehvi.org.
About the series
Aces of Trades is a weekly series focusing on people and their jobs – whether they’re unusual jobs, fun jobs or people who take ordinary jobs and make them extraordinary. If you have a suggestion for a future profile, let us know at ctnews@coshoctontribune.com.
This article originally appeared on Coshocton Tribune: 'That summer changed my life'
