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Paulk was born on May 30, 1927 in Appling County, Georgia; near Savannah, to Earl Pearly Paulk, Sr. and Addie Mae Tomberlin Paulk. His father was a minister in the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), eventually rising to assistant general overseer of the denomination. At 17, Paulk said he received a call from God to enter ministry.
Paulk graduated from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina in the 1940s, and earned his divinity degree from Emory University'sCandler School of Theology, becoming the first Pentecostal to attend the historically Methodistseminary. While at Candler, he married Norma Davis, a girl who had attended his father's church. |