Bev Cochran

AVONDALE ESTATES, Ga. - Bev Cochran, 82, died peacefully in his sleep July 22, 2016, at his home in Avondale Estates, GA. He was former administrator and CEO of The United Methodist Children's Home, Decatur. Born to Neal and Ruby Cochran in Tennille, GA, Bev grew up rough and unruly in Augusta. At Richmond Academy, Coach Sack Milligan helped Bev start to turn around. On a football scholarship at Georgia Tech, he finally started applying himself academically. Then the U.S. Army disciplined his character and dispossessed him of racial prejudices he had absorbed in his youth. At Wofford College on another football scholarship, he was mentored by a professor who convinced him that he had a lot to offer to hurting, angry children, like the child he had been, and with that man's assistance he got a job as a juvenile probation officer and counselor. After that he worked at a series of children's homes as a social-worker psychologist, social services director, and then chief administrator. Dr. Allan Broome at Epworth Children's Home in Columbia, S.C. was an important mentor to Bev during those years. While in the army he had met Jane Strauss and begun a 47-year romance. They married while he was at Wofford, and they worked in partnership in social services, at home, and in the Church, moving frequently until 1969, when he accepted the administrator position at UMCH in Decatur, GA. He used that position to create one opportunity after another to help people. Bev lost his beloved wife Jane in 2004, and is survived by daughter Pam Kirkwood (Bristol, TN), son and daughter-in-law Barney and Mary Cochran (Mount Vernon, OH), 5 grandchildren, 4 great-grandchildren, and many, many children and families from UMCH. Visitation was at the United Methodist Children's Home in Decatur, Tuesday, 7/26/16, and the funeral service was Wednesday, 7/27/16 at Decatur First United Methodist Church. Memorials may be sent to UMCH, 500 Columbia Dr., Decatur, GA 30030. A. .S. Turner & Sons Funeral Home and Crematory.