SILVER SPRING, MD — Jeffrey Lee Wright (Jeff) was born in Manhattan, Kan. on May 8, 1951 to Peggy and Jim Wright. Jeff grew up in Great Bend, Kan. where his mother worked at raising four children (including brother Bill born in 1952, sister Karen born in 1955 and sister Suzanne born in 1956). Once the children were all in school his mother finished her college degree and worked for decades as a public school teacher. His father worked those same decades as a mechanical engineer in the oil industry. Both parents were volunteer leaders in the boy and girl scouts, respectively. Jeff’s dad also coached Jeff’s team in little league baseball. Jeff earned his God and Country award from the Boy Scouts in 1963 and that same year was confirmed as a member of the United Methodist Church.
In 1961 Jeff began to take trumpet lessons and to play the trumpet each year in the school bands. Jeff continued playing trumpet all his life, mostly in church music ministries after his recommitment to Jesus Christ and Baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues in 1976.
Jeff earned his Eagle Scout Award in 1965 and played on the school tennis team for all three years of high school. In 1963 Jeff joined the feeder corps (ages 12-13) of the Argonne Rebels Junior Drum and Bugle Corps (ages 14 – 21) which was sponsored by the local American Legion Post and community businesses.
In 1966 Jeff joined the older-age corps for the next six years and was marching with that group when they won the American Legion National Championship in the Houston Astrodome in 1972. In 1973 Jeff was a volunteer marching instructor for the corps and in 1974 Jeff was hired as the bugle director and saw the group win the Kansas State American Legion Championship and go on to compete in Drum Corps International Prelims in Ithaca, New York. Prior to that Jeff traveled with that group every summer across America, from Chicago to Boston to Miami, and many stops in between for local drum corps contests and half-time appearances at pro football games in Denver and Kansas City, and college basketball half-time appearances at University of Kansas in Lawrence and Kansas State University at Fort Hays.
In 1969 Jeff graduated from Great Bend High School after being elected President of the Student Body. Jeff continued his education for three years at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. with six months over the winter of 1970-71 at Stanford’s campus in Vienna, Austria, which included field trips to Berlin, Rome, Paris, London and Israel. In 1975 Jeff graduated with a music degree from Kansas State University at Fort Hays, which coincided with his being the bugle director for the Argonne Rebels in 1974. In the fall of 1975 Jeff recommitted his life to Jesus Christ and began to study the Navigators Basic Bible Course as part of a campus ministry at Kansas State University at Fort Hays, where he was baptized in December 1975 by total immersion in water as a sign of his new resurrected life in Christ.
Jeff then enrolled in January 1976 in Faith Bible College a part of Faith Community Church in Great Bend, Kan. from which he received in 1978 a transcript of courses completed, and served as a course instructor, as well as volunteer for weekly jail ministry and playing trumpet for the weekly music ministry, and advertising the monthly men’s breakfast for Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship. From 1976 to 1981 Jeff worked full-time as a civil engineering technician and report writer, and weekend motel desk clerk, insurance salesman and real estate salesman.
Jeff married Kim Simonson in 1976. Their daughter Amy was born in 1977 and son Sam in 1980. In 1981 Jeff moved his family to a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas where he worked full-time as a professional city fire fighter and part-time as an income tax preparer and insurance salesman. During that time in Texas he also volunteered for his local church as a trumpet player in the worship ministry, and construction laborer for church building projects.
In 1983 Jeff moved his family to the Washington, DC area to start a local church that would emphasize praying for the government primarily through a weekly Sunday morning DC Prayer Tour that used a van or bus to pass the main government buildings, monuments and embassies to use them as reminders to pray.
Jeff also began to publish and distribute weekly prayer alerts for nations, leaders and world events formatted as 60-second radio, TV or church announcements. Jeff began to conduct the DC Prayer Tour in conjunction with outside Christian ministries coming to DC to hold conventions, such as Billye Brim Secrets of Prayer and Power in 1984, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem in 1991 and Kenneth Copeland Ministries starting in 1994 and continuing every year 1996 through 2022.
In 1988 Jeff was asked to serve as the volunteer secretary/treasurer for the National Prayer Embassy under the leadership of founder Bob Willhite who then turned that ministry over to Jeff’s directorship in 1992, a position which Jeff continued to serve in through 2024.
In 2020 Jeff began to play trumpet and help lead singing every Sunday night from 5:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. at davidstentdc, a 24/7/365 continuous praise and worship to Jesus on the National Mall between the US Capitol and the White House.
Jeff saw that ministry in his spirit as a Bible College student in the late 1970’s and wrote a book on that subject (Continuous Praise) at that time, which is available for free download along with many other free Bible resources from his website: www.natlprayemb.org
In the fall of 2019 Jeff received a White House Press Room pass which allowed him to broadcast and record prayer alerts from near the press secretary’s podium.
Starting in 2020 Jeff posted many of his DC prayer tours on Facebook, along with Monday through Friday daily early morning prayer and daily calendar saturation Bible reading. Starting in 1996 Jeff adapted the DC Prayer Tour concept to Hollywood and annually organized and led Hollywood Prayer Tours past the main radio, TV and movie studios of Hollywood to pray for Godly values to prevail in the Entertainment Industry.
Those Hollywood Prayer Tours were organized from 1996 through 2009 as a part of Kenneth Copeland Ministries West Coast Believers Conventions, and then from 2010 through 2020 as a part of the 1st Southern Baptist Church and Messianic Fellowship of Buena Park, California, Pastor Wiley Drake.
After 2020 Jeff continued the annual Hollywood Prayer Tour virtually on Facebook with the assistance of his pastor Paula Gilbert of Chapel of the Holy Spirit, Leesburg, VA. Jeff also was active in weekly meetings of Celebrate Recovery from 2005 through 2024 through local churches across the state of Maryland, primarily in Riva, Gambrills and Huntington. Jeff traveled overseas for gospel missions trips including Africa in 1986, Korea in 1987 and India in 1991.
Jeff Wright is survived by his daughter, Amy K Wright; his son, Sam J Wright, and his two sisters, Karen Wright and Suzanne Wright.
In lieu of Flowers, donations can be made in the memory of Jeff L Wright to support feeding over 1,000 people a week through the food bank at Rainbow Family Christian Center. https://www.rainbowcdc.org/donate.
Great Bend (Kan.) Tribune, July 24, 2024
