Pastor Marta Cogburn
First United Methodist Church
Pastor Cogburn is a certified Family Nurse Practitioner. She began her nursing career in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky before enrolling at the University of Rochester and earning her Master of Nursing as a National Health Service Corps Scholar. She then became the first nurse practitioner to be hired at the Parrottsville Community Health Service in 1979, which would later become Rural Medical Service at Parrottsville. During her time there, she was recognized as Outstanding Practitioner of the Year by the Tennessee Primary Care Association. Pastor Cogburn entered the ministry in 2005 and studied at Duke Divinity School. She served as the Executive Director of Jubilee Project, a mission of the United Methodist Church in Hancock County, TN. Pastor Cogburn is now the Director of Recovery Ministry at First United Methodist Church. Her community service activities include the Crisis Response Team since its beginning, the Food Securities Committee of the Cocke County Cradle to Career Coalition, and various other mission projects in Cocke County and beyond. She is a certified trainer for Building Strong Brains, a study in adverse childhood events, and she currently works with COURAGE as a mentor for faith-based leaders seeking to develop recovery ministries in their communities.