Rosemont Baptist Church
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Serving the Lord Family Style

Church Staff

Senior Pastor - Rev. Doug Fannon
Doug was first called to be the full time Transitional Pastor for Rosemont in March 2010, to fill the gap from the leaving of Pastor Sharber Smith, who retired to do ministry in Mobile, until Rosemont  was able to search for and call another pastor.  After a diligent search, Rosemont called Doug to be the Senior Pastor in June 2011.  Doug has served in several different churches in the Niceville/Valparaiso area as education and youth minister and associate pastor.  The Air Force brought Doug to this area in 1991 where he met and married his beautiful wife, Ellen, who is a practicing veterinarian and also the church pianist.  Doug served in the Air Force as a pilot and retired from active duty in 1996.  Later in 1999, God called him and Ellen to the mission field, to serve with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in Indonesia.  After returning to the US just before 9/11 in 2001, the Air Force recalled Doug for 2 more years of active duty.  After leaving active duty, Doug was personally requested to return to Banda Aceh, Indonesia, right after the devastating tsunami of December 26, 2004, to be the on-site coordinator for all Southern Baptist disaster relief efforts.  He served for almost 3 months in the hardest hit area where 150 thousand people were lost.  Doug was ordained to the Gospel Ministry in 2005 by New Hope Baptist Church, Valparaiso, FL, and graduated from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 2010 with a Master of Divinity degree.  From 2007 to 2016, Doug and Ellen provided foster care for over 40 children through the Florida Baptist Children's Homes. Doug has 3 grown married children living in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Hawaii along with 6 grandchildren. Doug and Ellen have two boys at home and living in the local area ages 16 and 28, plus an assortment of dogs, cats, and birds. Doug feels God is calling him to lead Rosemont to be an Acts 1:8 church, being an active witness to the life giving power of Jesus to our community, city, state, country, and on to the ends of the earth.
Email Doug at Pastor@RBCNiceville.org                    (updated November 2022)
 
Minister of Worship Arts - Trina Sovereign-Weiss 

Trina grew up in upstate New York and became saved at age ten. She knew as a little girl she would sing for the Lord, and God instilled a calling in her heart to go into the ministry. She graduated from Buffalo School of the Bible with a degree in Biblical Theology, Pastoral Studies. After graduation, Trina had a successful career in sales, sales management, and sales training. She is also a licensed Realtor. Although a professional businesswoman, Trina always remained involved in church and ministry, including singing in worship teams, teaching with her husband, Richard, in the children’s ministry, leading kids’ worship, serving in the nursery, and serving with Richard as youth group leaders. She and Richard also taught a new believers’ class. Trina volunteered as a camp counselor at Lake Aurora Christian Camp in the Lake Wales, FL. She and Richard also helped plant and start a church which is now international, with two campuses.

Trina left Buffalo, NY in 2002 and moved to Ft Myers, FL, where she met her husband. They married and moved to North Port, FL in 2007. They felt God calling them to Niceville, FL, and made the move in 2022. Rosemont Baptist Church has always been their “church home in Niceville” when visiting Richard’s mom over the past twenty years. During a Sunday service at Rosemont, right after moving to Niceville, Trina answered God’s call to full-time ministry, assisting Pastor Doug and leading the worship. Richard and everyone at Rosemont gave confirmation of Trina’s calling to serve at Rosemont as Minister of Music and Worship Arts.

In her free time, Trina and Richard enjoy spending time with Richard’s large extended family who live in Niceville and the surrounding area. Trina and Richard love being with their two children, Ronin (13) and Allison (11). They enjoy swimming and kayaking in the bayou, cheering Allison on at her soccer games, watching Ronin play golf or listening to him play the trumpet. Family means everything to them, as they feel God has called us to evangelize our kids and family first; then “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” (Mark 16:15)

Trina believes in the need for evangelism for lost souls so they would come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. God desires for all men to be saved as stated in 2 Peter 3:9: “not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” All glory be given to God, Amen!
Email Trina at  Music@RBCNiceville.org                           (updated: July 2023)

 
Youth Director - Sheila Commander

Sheila has attended Rosemont since she was 3 years old. She was baptized here in 1989. She was highly involved in the children and youth programs growing up. Being raised at Rosemont has given her a special bond to her home church she cannot imagine serving anywhere else. The church family has been her rock through many though times in her life. She is forever grateful to God for placing them her life. Her favorite passage in the Bible is Isaiah 53 (The Messiah as the Suffering Servant). Sheila was called to be the volunteer youth director in 1999. She served as volunteer youth director and puppet director till 2003. In 2006 she felt the Lord leading her back to be youth director and has been doing it ever since. Sheila directs the youth, puppet team, and children’s church. She has a passion for helping the homeless and keeps the youth evolved in collecting and handing out supplies to them.  Sheila’s full-time job is at Bluewater Elementary she is the assistant childcare coordinator for the before and after care program. She has a dog named Waldo who is cutest dog ever. 
Email Sheila at Youth@RBCNiceville.org                            (last update, September 2020) 

 
Benevolence Director/Church Caretaker - Janet Randall

Jan is a Christian mother, grandmother and great-grand-mother. She is the 10th child of 12 born to sharecropper parents in Oklahoma.   Jan married her husband in 1958.  She lived in several states, and spent 10 years in Saudi Arabia.  Jan joined Rosemont Baptist church in 2010.  She is very blessed to be part of the caring Christian family at the Rosemont Baptist Church. Hebrews 11:1 “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Email Jan at Benevolence@RBCNiceville.org               (updated September 2020)

 

Church Pianist - Dr. Ellen Fannon
Ellen Fannon has been married to Pastor Doug for 31 years. She has been a church organist/pianist since 1984, serving in six different churches including overseas on the mission field. Ellen is a practicing veterinarian, former missionary, and frustrated author, whose works have appeared in numerous publications including the Open Windows Devotional Fall 2020.  Her first novel, Other People’s Children, relating hers and Pastor Doug's experiences in foster care, was published in 2017.  Read her blogs at www.ellenfannonauthor.com.  Ellen co-teaches the adult co-ed Sunday school class and loves working in the Shoebox ministry for Operation Christmas Child. It is difficult for Ellen to choose a favorite Bible verse, but she said “I particularly like Rev: 7:9-10 because it reminds me of my time on the mission field when my heart was deeply touched by observing brothers and sisters in Christ worshipping in their own language. Although I might not have been able to completely understand everything that was said, the worship experience was just as meaningful to me.”     Rev 7:9-10  “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb . . . And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.’ ”   
Email Ellen at EllenFannonAuthor@gmail.com         (Updated November 2022)

Administrative Assistant - Kathy Boone
Kathy moved from Central Florida to this area in 2004, and her immediate family consists of her husband, Bill “Shorty” Boone, daughter, Ariel, and her mother, Zoe Phillips.  She has 2 other daughters and 6 grandchildren living in Indiana.  She married Shorty Boone in 2004 at Rosemont Baptist Church and was also re-baptized in Rosemont Baptist Church in 2004.  She worked previously for about 20 years as a medical transcriptionist/medical secretary, and also spent several years working as a community health worker in the Defuniak Springs and Freeport areas.   In 2008 Kathy felt a calling toward music evangelism and began to specialize in spreading the gospel through song at various local churches and nursing homes, frequently as half of a singing duo known as “Simply Grace” whenever possible.  Kathy enjoys sharing a variety of Christian music; gospel, contemporary and praise…she just loves singing for the Lord!  She feels very blessed to have been recently chosen as the Secretary for Rosemont Baptist Church and is so happy to be able to work in a positive atmosphere with people who are so loving and caring.  Kathy’s hobbies are sewing and crocheting, and she also loves outdoor activities and the animals on their property in Mossy Head (16 chickens and 3 dogs).  Kathy's favorite Bible verses are: Acts 16:25 “About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening.“   and   Eph 5:19 “..addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart.”
Email Kathy at Secretary@RBCNiceville.org                        (updated September 2020)