Duncan Hoopes is not the typical fresh out of seminary pastor.
His call to First Presbyterian Church in Indianola is indeed his first since his ordination in late 2019, but it is hardly his first job.
A trained and renowned economist – who worked for nearly three decades building economic models for Price Waterhouse (PwC) and IBM - Hoopes brings a wealth of work and life experience to the table, and while life as a minister may be his second act, it will undoubtedly be his most important on this earth.
Hoopes was actually born in Jackson, the son of a Republican surgeon who later was on the team of doctors that performed the first transsexual operation in the United States at Johns Hopkins.
His mother was a “bleeding heart liberal” Universalist Unitarian who at one time sat in a witch’s circle, he said.
Although he spent more time with his mother as a child, he was more aligned, at least economically, with his father’s conservatism.
“I think I had a lot of exposure to liberalism, and I think I imagined I was conservative from an economic perspective and a liberal from a social perspective,” Hoopes said. “That’s how I thought of myself in high school.”
It was during those high school years that he began attending a weekly youth group, but it would be two and half years later when Hoopes said the Holy Spirit opened his ears and heart and he made his profession of faith at a winter retreat.
“I heard an evangelist share the Gospel, and I can tell you for a fact, I had never heard the Gospel before,” Hoopes said. “I know for a fact that it is the Holy Spirit that gives you ears to hear, because you will repress it, and it can be spoken and you’ll never know.”
Hoopes went to college, but he was admittedly not very disciplined.
It took him a decade to finish his degree, and it took him the same 10-year period to find a solid church where he began to strengthen the faith he professed so many years earlier.
During that decade, Hoopes married his wife, Debbie, and they have since raised five children, Duncan Jr., Luke, Josephine, Victoria and Medora.
Hoopes said he began to listen to Christian talk radio during his three-hour roundtrip commute to work.
“From that, I got a better understanding of what I believed,” Hoopes said.
Hoopes eventually went to work for Price Waterhouse, the firm he worked at for nearly three decades, helping local and state governments make important decisions, based on his economic models.
At one time, Hoopes was one of the world’s leading experts on cross border activity when it comes to consumption of tobacco products, and he produced Price Waterhouse’s annual outlook on tobacco, while testifying before local councils and state legislatures.
When New York City was proposing its first ban on cigarettes in the workplace, Hoopes brought his models and expertise to the city as a consultant.
“I testified, not based on the morality of it, but because I wanted to let them see what would happen to their cigarette excise taxes if they prevented cigarettes from being consumed at work and what that would mean economically for them from a tax perspective,” he said.
He consulted with the economic development agency surrounding the city of Cleveland, Ohio when they were going to build Jacobs Field for the Indians.
“They needed $285 million in bond issuance for that stadium,” he said. “They were going to fund it from municipal bonds on beer, wine and cigarettes. So, I forecasted the beer, wine and cigarettes for a 15-year period, on a monthly basis, for each of those products.”
Hoopes presented best case, worst case and most-likely case scenarios for the city.
“A huge percentage of the people working in Cuyahoga county lived outside Cuyahoga County,” he said. “They had the choice, when they woke up in the morning, do I buy my cigarettes in my hometown or when I get to work? If you increase the price where they work, they’re going to choose to buy it in their hometown. It would have an immediate impact on their sales.”
After four years, Hoopes’ most likely forecast was off by less than a tenth of a percent. His 15-year estimate was off by less than 1 percent.
Hoopes would go on to do major transportation analysis for the U.S. Postal Service, and he would move up the chain at Price Waterhouse, eventually moving to Tampa, Florida and becoming the company’s Global IT Director for Human Resources.
He oversaw the merger the integration of HR systems during the merger of Price Waterhouse and IBM, after IBM acquired the consulting division of the company.
All the while, Hoopes was very active at Seminole Presbyterian Church and Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, where he served as a ruling elder, and he was the chair of the outreach committee leading the church’s involvement in the Billy Graham Crusade in the late 90s.
Still, at the time, he felt no draw toward the full time ministry.
“As early as the late 90s, I would use this phrase, ‘I am jealous of other people who are called to the ministry, but I know I’m not called.’ I really truly believed at the time, God was not calling me to minister,” he said.
At the time, his calling was in the business world, where he shared the Gospel with co-workers through Bible studies and by giving out Bibles.
But that would change as he dove deeper into his role as a ruling elder, and he became more interested in expository preaching.
When he decided to go to seminary, Mississippi was not the first place he and his wife Debbie thought of, but he knew he wanted to be somewhere that he felt needed expository preaching.
One of his seminary professors, Bebo Elkin, was from Mississippi, and he began talking about the state as a potential home for the couple.
At first, he explored a couple of openings in the northern part of the state, but it was when he reached out to First Presbyterian in Indianola that he made his visit.
The couple flew into Memphis and drove through the Delta.
“We stopped at a gas station to get Diet Cokes, and they had catfish next to the cash register, fried catfish. We ate some of that, and I thought, “I can live here. We can live here,’” he said. “My first experience with the Delta was that catfish at the convenience store.”
It did not take long for Duncan to connect with the region and the city of Indianola, and before graduating from the seminary last May, he and Debbie began making plans to come here to live.
This past October, FPC held an official ordination ceremony, and in late January, the church officially accepted Debbie’s membership transfer.
With a few months under his belt, Hoopes is bringing a new life to the church, which has added a Wednesday night dinner and service.
He and Debbie have become involved in the community, and he intends to use his skills in building relationships to share the Gospel and invite people to help grow the church moving forward.
Hoopes’ journey began in Mississippi over five decades ago, and though he was only here for a short time, it seems his life and work experiences that came after that were all in preparation for his ministry in his home state.
