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How many of you know the name Paul Aurandt? He also has an alias.

You know him as Paul Harvey. He has published books about The Rest of the Story (Bantam) and More of Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story (Morrow). Stories built around the surprise ending format have been compiled into books that make fascinating reading. I have 2 of them.

One of my favorite stories is the one about West Side Baptist Church in Beatrice, Nebraska. Normally all of the good choir people came to church on Wednesday night to practice, and they tended to be early, well before the 7:30 starting time. But one night, March 1, 1950, one by one, two by two, they all had excuses for being late.

Marilyn, the church pianist, overslept on her after-dinner nap, so she and her mother were late. One girl, a high school sophomore, was having trouble with her homework. That delayed her, so she was late. One couple couldn’t get their car started. They, and those they were to pick up, were subsequently late.

All eighteen choir members, including the pastor and his wife, were late. All had good excuses. At 7:30, the time the choir rehearsal was to begin, not one soul was in the choir loft. This had never happened before.

But that night, the only night in the history of the church that the choir wasn’t starting to practice at 7:30, was the night that there was a gas leak in the basement of the West Side Baptist Church. At precisely the time at which the choir would have been singing, the gas leak was ignited by the church furnace and the whole church blew up. The furnace room was right below the choir loft

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