Gospel music publisher and hymnodist Robert Emmett (R.E.) Winsett composed many sacred songs, with “Jesus Is Coming Soon” the best known, but his reputation rested chiefly on publishing. Through the R. E. Winsett Publishing Company, he produced more than 60 hymnals and reportedly sold millions of copies to churches, individuals, and singing schools across the country. Born on a farm near Pikeville, Tennessee, on Jan. 15, 1876, and raised in New Harmony, he experienced a religious awakening at age 7 and began writing hymns. He became proficient on several instruments, was gifted at writing harmony parts, reportedly graduated from the Bowman Normal School of Music in Arkansas in January 1899, and later studied at the Southern Normal Conservatory of Music. Based in Fort Smith, Arkansas, he published his first hymnal, Winsett's Favorite Melodies, in 1903, and his 1908 collection Songs of Pentecostal Power became his first widely distributed hymnal. His work appealed to Baptist, Holiness, and Pentecostal congregations in the Southeast and was especially popular with Church of God congregations in North Carolina and East Tennessee, and his hymnals became one of the cornerstones of Southern sacred music. Shortly after his first marriage in 1908, he moved his base of operations from Arkansas to Chattanooga; after running singing schools, camp meetings, and teaching music in Arkansas, he focused increasingly on publishing in Chattanooga. After a short return to Fort Smith, he brought his family back to Chattanooga for the 1925 Scopes “monkey trial” because he opposed the teaching of evolution and wanted to support the creationist cause firsthand. He relocated his business to Chattanooga and then, as of January 1929, to Dayton. By then his first wife had died, leaving him with six children, and he moved his family to a farm in Graysville, southeast of Dayton, while running the publishing business from the Gem City Opera House Building on Dayton's Main Street. Most years he published one or two hymnals, drawing on original hymns, works by other gospel publishers used under reciprocal agreements, and adaptations of traditional pieces, and most sales were to churches for whom he would customize the binding. In 1930 he remarried and had three more children, and in 1940 he and his family moved to Market Street in Dayton. He began tailoring his hymnals to specific audiences, including children and service members, and in 1951 he published Best of All, generally considered one of the top-selling hymnals of all time, with reported first-year sales of 600,000 copies. R.E. Winsett died on June 26, 1952. His best-known hymn, “Jesus Is Coming Soon,” was later recorded by several artists, including the Oak Ridge Boys, and became Song of the Year at the first Gospel Music Association Dove awards in 1969. He was inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2002.