footprints
Summer 2011
New Beginnings
Members of the
Wayland family
are changing
lives, including
their own, through
new experiences.
Inside: BSM plans mission trip to Haiti n Alum finds joy in Christian wrestling
S
ee the world
through the eyes of a Wayland student
on just $28 a month
I
We can’t all go...
but we can train them, send them,
and support them as they go.
For more information on the building campaign, log onto
www.wbu.edu, click on “Friends and Donors” and then
click on “Special Funds/Campaigns” on the blue bar.
magine having a part in the worldwide
spreading of the Gospel for only $28 a
month. At Wayland Baptist University and
the Wayland Mission Center, we’re training
ministers across all academic disciplines, raising
up a future generation of Christian leaders who
will impact their chosen vocational field as well
as the kingdom of God.
We’re sending students into the mission
field while they’re still learning, growing and
realizing their call. Then, we’re sending them
into the world with degrees in math, science,
history, business, education, fine arts and religion – as well as a calling to spread God’s word
to a hurting world.
The proposed new Flores Bible Building and
Wayland Mission Center will allow the university
to continue our long tradition of encouraging
and empowering young people of all backgrounds to do the work of Christ around the
world.
For only $28 a month over three years, you
can make a “grand” commitment to this
project and impact student lives for generations
to come. For a $1,000 investment, you too can
have a part in the greater mission of Wayland.
q I want to make a “grand” commitment to the new Flores Bible Building.
Name __________________________________________________ Phone ______________________
Address ____________________________________________________________________________
City ________________________ State _____ Zip ________ Email _____________________________
q
I want to make my gift at one time. I have enclosed a check for $______________.
q
I want to make a one-time gift by credit card of $_______________
q
I would like to draft monthly from my bank account $_________. (Include voided check.)
q
I would like to draft monthly from my credit or debit card $__________ .
q Visa
q MasterCard
q American Express
q Contact me regarding estate planning,
gifts of stock, insurance or other gift
opportunities.
* Naming opportunities are available
throughout the facility.
* Gifts are tax deductible to the fullest
extent the law allows.
q Discover
Name on card ______________________________ Card number ______________________________
Expiration _________ Signature ________________________________________________________
Clip form and return to: Wayland Advancement, 1900 W. 7th, CMB 621, Plainview, Texas 79072 or give online via credit card at https://give.wbu.edu.
FOOTPRINTS - Volume 58, No. 1
Features
Editorial Board
Danny Andrews, BA’72
Publisher
Teresa Young, BA’94
Editor
Jonathan Petty, BA’95, MA’09
Assistant Editor
2
FOOTPRINTS is published by the Association of Former
Students at Wayland Baptist University. No outside advertising is
accepted. Wayland Baptist University is affiliated with the Baptist
General Convention of Texas. Wayland is accredited by the
Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of
Colleges and Schools to award degrees at the associate, baccalaureate and master’s levels. Contact the Commission on Colleges at
1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, GA 30033-4097 or call 404-6794500 for questions about the accreditation of Wayland Baptist
University. Non-profit rate postage paid at Lubbock, Texas
79404. Telephone (806) 291-3600.
POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to FOOTPRINTS, Wayland Baptist University, 1900 West 7th St. CMB
437, Plainview, TX 79072.
Wayland Baptist University does not discriminate on the basis
of race, color, religion, age, sex or national origin in administration of its policies, admission policies, scholarships and loan programs, athletic and other school administration.
Wayland Football Coach Butch Henderson
finds himself in a new situation, moving
from the high school to college ranks.
Alumni Officers
Sally Dillman Eaves, BS’75
President
Tyke Dipprey, BSOE’96
Vice President
Danny Andrews, BA’72
Director, Alumni Development
Susie Vera, AAS’84
Secretary
Executive Board
Dr. Gary Abercrombie, BS’73
Kevin Carter, BBA’93
Rose Ann Chavez, BSOE’06
Michael Cox, BA’98, MA’10
Brenda Gonzalez, BA’73
Stacie Hardage, BBA’90
Mike Manchee, BS'94, MEd’97
Richard Miller, BS’87
Danny Murphree, BS’69
Daleyn Schwartz, AAS’85
Caren Smith, BA’92
Courtney Williams, BSIS’02
Danny Wrenn, BA’84
Are you ready?
10
Migration to litigation
Velma Solorzano finds job satisfaction in
helping the less fortunate with legal issues.
14
Colombian born
Jay and Stephany Gaines open their lives to
a former foster child in Colombia
Departments
On the cover:
Jonathan is a
Colombian boy
adopted by Jay and
Stephany Gaines
through a Christian
adoption agency.
13
Alum for President
22
News in Brief
24
Athletics Review
26
President's Pen
27
Thinking Out Loud
28
Development Feature
30
Class Notes
If you have any questions or comments about Footprints, drop an e-mail to
Danny at andrewsd@wbu.edu, Teresa at youngt@wbu.edu, or write to us in care
of the Wayland Alumni Office.
New Beginnings
Henderson finds a home at Wayland
I don’t know
what God has in
store for us but it’s
in His hands and
the direction He
takes us has got
to be good.”
Butch Henderson
WBU Football Coach
By Jonathan Petty
B
utch Henderson sits in his new office on the second
floor of the Laney Student Activities Center. It’s a simple
office with a desk, computer, two chairs, and a closet at
the end of the room. The walls are still bare and the only decorative item in the room is a blue and gold football helmet sitting
on the edge of his desk.
Henderson is decked out in khaki pants and a comfortable
red and gold shirt. Although he has been on the job for a few
weeks, Henderson has yet to stockpile a number of Wayland
athletics shirts. He said the red and gold was just what he
pulled out of the closet on that particular morning, not unlike so
many mornings before. After all, for the previous 23 years, he
has donned the red and gold on a daily basis as the leader of
the Lubbock Coronado High School Mustangs.
“This is just what I picked out of the closet this morning,” he
grins.
After a lifetime of experiences, one can only imagine that
there is a closet full of memories in the red and gold. But as the
2011 football season approaches things have changed for
Henderson. He is now making room in the closet for a new set
of school colors and a new set of memories, this time in Blue
and Gold.
The Lord works in mysterious ways
In November 2010, after 23 years on the sidelines at
Coronado, Henderson was asked to resign by the school. When
he refused, the coach was reassigned by the school district.
“It all boils down to winning,” Henderson told the Lubbock
2 footprints
Avalanche-Journal in a Nov. 11, 2010, article. “In some ways it’s disappointing but in
other parts, like I said, Karen (his wife) and
I are looking at it from a standpoint of this
is a new chapter in our lives. I don’t know
what God has in store for us but it’s in His
hands and the direction He takes us has
got to be good.”
Karen has been at Henderson’s side
throughout his coaching career. The couple
celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary
earlier this summer, and Henderson will
begin his 37th season as a football coach
this fall. Throughout his years on the sideline, Karen has been an important part of
his life not only off the field, but on it as
well.
“She is not a stand-off, outside watcher,” Henderson said. “She was involved
with the athletes and wrote them notes
and things. She is involved in their lives.”
Yet as the coaching couple prepared to
face a new, unknown chapter in their lives,
events were also unfolding at Wayland. On
Dec. 8, 2010, Wayland hired its first football coach since the program was discontinued in the late 1940s. Jeff Lynn was to
oversee recruiting through the winter and
spring with a target to begin practice in
the fall of 2011. Wayland’s first class will
be a leadership class that will work
throughout 2011 to begin competition in
2012.
Lynn worked tirelessly for four months,
piling up recruits. In April, however, he was
suddenly called away from his commitment to WBU to take care of family issues,
opening the door for a new coach.
When Henderson was reassigned at
Coronado, he knew his coaching career
wasn’t over, but he wasn’t sure where his
next stop would be. Coaching the college
ranks in Plainview wasn’t really on his
radar. But when the opportunity presented
itself, Butch and Karen decided to take the
plunge.
Football is in the blood
Henderson grew up in Artesia, N.M., the
son of a football coach.
“I grew up watching him work,” he said.
“My father had to make a decision real
early, even before I was born, whether he
was going to be a football coach or
become a pastor.”
Henderson said his father provided an
footprints 3
Football
Timeline
• Texas Tech defeated
Wayland 120-0 during the 1925 season.
• E.W. “Jack” Jackson,
a star player on the
teams of the late
20’s who averaged
five yards a carry
from the fullback
position, was inducted into the WBU
Athletic Hall of
Honor in 1995. He
remains the only
football player in the
Hall.
• In 1930, the
Jackrabbits went 81-1. One of those
victories was a 6-0
decision over Texas
Tech.
• Football at Wayland
was disbanded
shortly thereafter
because of the
depression, but was
reinstated in 193637.
• The last football
game played by a
Wayland team came
on November 8,
1940. The
Jackrabbits lost to
Decatur Baptist
College, 32-0.
Ernest Craigo, a
1993 Athletic Hall of
Honor inductee, was
the coach. The
team finished with a
record of 1-5-1.
4 footprints
example of how one can incorporate his
Christian faith into the coaching professions, teaching life lessons to young men
as they work through the program.
Henderson credits much of his own
approach to his father, but much of his
understanding to his mother.
“Moms play a big role in being able
to say that what dad is doing is important. My mom really pointed all three of
us children to the good things, and to
what dad was doing with his coaching,”
Henderson said. “From the time I was in
elementary school, I knew I was going to
be a coach.”
Henderson grew up around his
father’s programs, where he learned what
it took to work tirelessly in season and
out to be a coach. And while pressured
to one day take over for his father, he
also felt a calling to take his game to
Texas.
“I grew up in Artesia and people
would ask, ‘Are you going to come back
to Artesia to coach?’ I said, no. I’m going
to go to Texas,” Henderson explained.
“Somehow God had planted that in my
thoughts and that is where I headed.”
Henderson left coaching in Artesia to
his younger brother, Cooper, who has
spent nearly 25 years building a state
powerhouse in southeast New Mexico.
Their sister, Linda, also entered the
coaching profession, working with basketball and track teams in Sonora. She later
left the coaching game to focus on the
classroom and raise her family. She has
since retired from teaching in
Georgetown.
Yet in all his years of coaching, separated by only a few miles of desert highway, Butch and Cooper Henderson have
never faced off on the gridiron. … and
Butch said they never will.
“It will not happen,” he said. “It’s one
of those things as a family we just are
not going to do.”
Henderson, 58, said the lack of com-
petition among siblings on the field also
translates to their off-the-field relationships.
“There has never been a lot of competition among us,” he said. “When we
get together with the family it is just fun.
You talk. You laugh. You find out what is
going on in each other’s life.”
Family is important to Henderson. He
and Karen have four children. Their oldest son, Rex, works as an assistant coach
for his uncle in Artesia. Their daughter,
Jodi, is well-known by many of the faculty and staff at Wayland. Jodi ran track
and played soccer at Wayland, competing
in five national track meets for the
Pioneers. Janna Henderson is also heavily
involved in athletics, playing on a traveling flag football team that has competed
in tournaments from Vancouver to
Florida. And, Rick, the Henderson’s
youngest son, is a student at Howard
Payne University.
Henderson said raising four children
with a coach’s schedule was difficult, but
it was made possible with the work and
dedication of his wife.
“She is really the one who holds
everything together,” he said. “When you
are coaching you are in and out, and she
has to take care of the kids. She has
done a great job with the kids in our
family. She is a big part of what I do.”
Teaching the athletes
Not that Henderson hasn’t done his
best to raise the kids – his own four as
well as the hundreds of young men he
has worked with throughout the years. A
strong Christian, Henderson has brought
his Christian witness and faith to the
football field. That’s not always easy
working in a public state school where
any expression of religion is generally forbidden. Henderson said this doesn’t
mean one has to set aside his
Christianity to work in public schools.
“When you are a Christian it comes
out in who you are and what you do. That
is who you are,” Henderson said.
Actually sharing his faith and speaking
openly about God was difficult at times,
but Henderson said it wasn’t impossible.
“You have to pray a lot for God’s wisdom in when and how you say those
things so that you don’t overstep your
bounds,” he said.
Although the coach will now have to
freedom to express his Christianity openly at a faith-based school, Henderson said
his approach to teaching on the field
won’t change much. While demonstrating
a Christian faith he wants to teach the
young men under his watch that football
can be a learning tool for situations they
will face later in life.
“What we learn on the football field
has to integrate into life later on for it to
be important,” Henderson said. “In West
Texas there is so much pressure on the
kids to play and perform well, and I think
that takes a lot of motivation. We have to
take that and show this is how it is going
to be later in life. This is how it works.”
Teaching those life lessons just feeds
into the joy that Henderson feels on the
field. He loves the sport. He loves the
game. And he even loves practice.
“I enjoy practice. I enjoy the teaching
part of it,” he said. “I enjoy the week and
the preparation as you get ready for a
game. You start seeing a game plan
being implemented and growing.”
As recruits start hitting campus this
fall, all they will have to look forward to is
practice in preparation for an upcoming
season. It’s doubtful, however, that practice will ever get boring. Henderson said
he likes to keep practice fast-paced and
up-tempo.
“They are going to be running and
going, and I’m going to be running and
going,” he said. “I’m not a coach that is
going to walk around and watch other
people coach. I want to coach.”
Henderson said he will hire other
coaches and let them take care of their
responsibilities, but he will be in the
trenches as well, teaching the basics and
fundamentals for quarterbacks and the
offense. Henderson will implement a
spread offense and throw the ball about
60 percent of the time.
“We will get the ball in space and
have athletes and receivers who can run
with the football,” Henderson said. “It will
be a fast-tempo offense. We will never
huddle. We will keep moving. Sometimes
we will be moving fast; sometimes we will
be moving slow. But we will control the
tempo of the game and not let the
defense dictate tempo.”
Defensively, Henderson said the
scheme will depend on the defensive
coordinator. The coach wants someone
who has some understanding of the collegiate level, and someone he is comfortable giving control of the defense. The
plan is to have a defensive coordinator in
place this summer. The coaches can then
look at bringing in up to four graduate
assistants, with the possibility of hiring
two more assistants in 2012.
It is projected that nearly 100 recruits
will be on campus this fall to begin work
toward the 2012 season. This will give
the coaching staff time to evaluate players and determine what additional needs
the team might have. The coaches will
then begin recruiting to bring in additional talent for the fall of 2012. Coming from
a high school background, Henderson
said recruiting will be something new to
which he will have to adapt.
“My learning curve is in recruiting and
being able to get the athletes here,”
Henderson said.
Henderson said he knows all the high
school coaches in the area, but getting
them to send their kids to Wayland will
be beneficial. He also said he will need to
hire a staff that knows some of the tricks
• Football program suspended in 1941 during World War II
when the coach
joined the war effort.
• Football program was
officially cut following
the war.
• The sport was reinstated in March
2010.
• New coach, Jeff
Lynn, hired in
December 2010
• Lynn unexpectedly
resigns in April 2011
• Coach Butch
Henderson hired in
May 2011
• Recruits will officially
begin practice in
August 2011
• First game scheduled
for Sept. 1, 2012 vs.
Monterrey Tech. The
game will be played
in San Antonio.
continued on Page 8
footprints 5
New Beginnings
McMillan trading tax forms for fungo bats
By Jonathan Petty
F
or 57-year-old Tommy
McMillan, starting over is
a dream come true.
After 25 years as an
accountant, McMillan is stepping
away from the family business and
taking a new position -- in the
dugout, as the new full-time assistant baseball coach.
“When you get an opportunity
to do something you really want to
do, something I love to do, it’s like a
dream come true,” McMillan said.
For the last six years, McMillan
has served as a volunteer assistant
for the Pioneers, spending as much
time at the field as his busy
accounting schedule would allow.
But with the busy tax season coinciding with the heart of the baseball
season, McMillan wasn’t able to
spend as much time at the field as
he would have liked.
“I tried to suit up for the home
games as much as I possibly could
and sit there on my bucket and do
what I needed to do,” McMillan said.
As a volunteer, he would work some
with the infielders, throw batting
6 footprints
practice and hit fungo in pre-game
warm-ups. But McMillan was never
able to make the road trips. And
many times, he would only be able
to sit in the dugout for a couple of
innings before feeling called back to
the office to take care of his clients.
“I wanted to make sure that my
clients understood they had priority,” McMillan said. “I tried to shuffle
my schedule around and it worked
out.”
But even though his accounting
practice has paid the family bills for
the last quarter of a century, baseball has always been in McMillan’s
blood. As a boy, he grew up playing
baseball and parlayed that love into
a scholarship at Texas Tech where
he played third base from 1973-76.
After graduating from Tech,
McMillan spent three years working
at a sporting goods store in
Amarillo. It was at that time, however, that his dad asked him to come
to work for the family accounting
firm. McMillan, who graduated with
a degree in business, returned to
college to pick up the accounting
hours he needed then joined his
dad as an accountant.
“It’s been a good life for us, but
baseball has always been a love of
my life and part of my life,”
McMillan said.
Six years ago, Pioneer Coach
Brad Bass approached McMillan,
wanting to know what it would
take to get him involved with the
Pioneers program.
“Just ask,” McMillan said.
Bass did.
“Coach Bass and Wayland have
been very good to me in letting me
come out when I can and do what
he wants me to do,” McMillan said.
A few weeks ago, Bass decided
to make another inquiry of his
friend, approaching McMillan after
church and asking if there would
KK ^xçá
be some way he could talk the
accountant into working with the
program on a full-time basis.
“I said I was all ears. Let’s talk,”
McMillan said.
The two sat down with Athletic
Director Dr. Greg Feris and worked
out a deal. McMillan will officially
retire from his accounting business, transferring his clients to
other partners in the firm, and
take up coaching on a full-time
basis.
Bass said McMillan’s commitment and love of the sport are
unparalleled and will be an asset
to the program.
“Tommy brings a commitment
to Plainview, a commitment to
Wayland, and a commitment to
doing what coaches do to help
kids,” Bass said. “He has a natural
love for kids and that comes
through in the way he works with
our athletes. I’m fired up about
having him with us.”
As a full-time assistant,
McMillan expects to “jump in with
both feet.” He will continue to work
with infielders, throw BP and hit
fungo, but he will also hit the
recruiting trail, work on the field
and file the necessary paperwork
to make sure players are eligible.
“If you even go to a ball park
and can’t find something to do,
then you didn’t look very hard,” he
said. “It’s going to be 24 hours a
day, seven days a week to make
that adjustment, but I’m willing
and ready to go. I’m really looking
forward to this opportunity.”
Wayland Baptist University – School of Music
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The 88 keys program is a fundraising project to purchase a
Steinway and Sons Model D Concert Grand Piano. With your
purchase of a key, our students will be one step closer to
performing on the world’s most respected concert piano.
Our Goal: $150,000
Be part of this opportunity to influence students’ lives.
Purchase a Steinway key today.
1 key = $1,388
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Purchase a key at wbu.steinwaypianos.com
(Donations of any amount are appreciated and accepted.)
Contact Linda Grover at 806-291-1076 or groverl@wbu.edu
from Page 5
WBU Football Schedule
2012
Date
9/1
9/15
9/22
9/29
10/6
10/13
10/20
10/27
11/3
11/10
8 footprints
Opponent
Monterrey Tech
Howard Payne
McMurry
Texas College
Langston
Austin College
SW Assemblies
Bacone College
Southern Naz
Ok. Panhandle St.
Place
San Antonio
Brownwood
Plainview
Tyler
Plainview
Sherman
Plainview
Muskogee, OK
Plainview
Plainview
of the trade to track down junior college and transfer students
who would be a good fit for the program.
Time
TBA
TBA
6 pm
2 pm
2 pm
TBA
2 pm
2 pm
2 pm
2 pm
A winning attitude
Henderson said just facing a practice schedule for the fall of
2012 may send him into football withdrawal, but he will get
used to it.
“The brain just starts thinking season,” he said. “We will think
football and think practice, but we will not have those games to
think about.”
However, the Pioneers will have plenty of time to focus on
their first game – a Sept. 1, 2012, match against Monterrey Tech
to be played in San Antonio. Other games that season will
include road games at Howard Payne, Texas College, Austin
College, and Bacone College. Home games will be played at the
Plainview High School field and the 2012 opponents will be
McMurry University, Langston University, Southwest Assemblies
of God University, Southern Nazarene and Oklahoma Panhandle
State University.
While the first game may be more than a year away,
Henderson said his recruits face high expectations.
“The biggest thing is that I want our kids to come in with the
attitude that we are going to win,” he said. “If you are not careful, people will put a ceiling on you; you are just starting a program; this is all you can do. I don’t want our kids to come in
with that picture. I want our kids coming in thinking we are from
West Texas and West Texas people like to win. That is the expectation for us.
“We need to come in and begin this program as a winning
program.”
Thousands of residents of
Grand-Goave, Haiti, are still
living in tents more than a
year after the earthquake
devastated the island
nation.
Wayland planning humanitarian
trip to build houses Haiti
Wayland is planning a trip over
the Christmas holidays to build
homes for families in Haiti.
Organized through the Baptist
Student Ministries, the trip will be
Dec. 27 through Jan. 7. The primary
role for participants will be to construct two homes for families whose
homes were lost in the earthquake
which ravaged the island nation in
January 2010.
BSM Director Donnie Brown first
visited Haiti in March. On that trip, he
learned about a unique process that
was helping to build affordable housing for residents. For $4,000, a 280square-foot facility called a “rubble
house” can be constructed. That cost
covers all materials as well as labor
costs for hiring trained Haitians to
work alongside volunteers. That
aspect of the work, said Brown, is
critical.
“It’s more than just going to build
a house. We’re empowering Haitians
to make a living for themselves as
well,” Brown said.
The rubble houses are constructed using recycled rubble from
destroyed homes and property,
which is poured into welded wire
cages and used to make a foundation, walls and floor. They are then
covered in cement plaster. The superstructure and roof framing are of
lumber covered in corrugated steel.
Two doors, two windows, a skylight
and two small patios are included.
Brown said he hopes to take 2428 people on the trip, including students and others who may want to
participate in the rebuilding effort.
The trip will cost between $1,300
and $1,500 per person.
He is also in need of financial
gifts to the effort, to either offset the
cost of the rubble houses being built
or to offset the cost of the trip for
students involved. Gifts are all taxdeductible through Wayland.
For more information on the trip
or on giving to the effort, contact
Brown at 291-3595 or by email at
brownd@wbu.edu.
It’s more than just
going to build a
house. We’re empowering Haitians to
make a living for
themselves as well,”
Donnie Brown
BSM Director
footprints 9
New Beginnings
Moving from migrant fields to law offices
By Teresa Young
I remember asking
God to help me get a
good education and
make a better life. I
think I even prayed
not really asking but
demanding.”
Velma Gonzales de Solorzano
BBA ’01, MBA ’03
10 footprints
E
ach morning, WBU graduate Velma Gonzales de
Solorzano leaves her home and arrives at her Santa
Fe-style office in downtown Plainview and settles in to
work her case load. Life in 2011 is very different from her
younger years, and she’s never far away – mentally or physically
– from those days.
As an attorney in Plainview, Solorzano has committed herself
to serving those who are underprivileged and underrepresented.
“My passion is helping those less fortunate than me, and I
find those mostly in tax and immigration cases,” she said. “I
serve primarily a middle- to lower-income Hispanic population. I
really focus on educating my clients and getting them back on
track.”
It’s easy for Solorzano to empathize with much of her clientele because she has lived that life in many ways. Her family
immigrated to the U.S. from Chihuahua, Mexico, and are now
American citizens. Her husband Joel’s family also immigrated,
and Solorzano said that’s why immigration law is so dear to her.
Solorzano was born in Lovington, N.M., but lived throughout
the region as her family followed farm work. The oldest of six
children, Velma barely remembers her birth father, who died
when she was two. She credits a loving stepfather who helped
raise the siblings as being a very important part of her life. The
family would often visit relatives in Plainview and at one point
decided to stay in the city.
Poverty was a way of life, and it wasn’t that stable. The entire
family worked in the farm fields as migrant workers, often making trips to Colorado to work the sugar beet fields or sometimes
to California to work grape vineyards or citrus fields. She recalls
working in the fields from age eight alongside
her parents.
“It was hard work,” she said. “We would get
up early in the mornings to travel to a field by
daybreak then get as much done as possible,
working until sundown before we’d head back.”
Sometimes, the field work bled into the
start of a new school year, and the children
would have to begin school in Colorado and
then transfer mid-semester when the work
ended and they moved back to Plainview. That
pattern resulted in some culture shock for the
Gonzales children, but they managed to muddle through despite the instability. It was in
those fields, however, that young Velma first
began to dream about what could be possible
for her down the road.
“I always loved school, and I would stand in
those fields and pray and wonder if this was
what my life was to be,” she recalled. “I remember asking God to help me get a good education and make a better life. I think I even
prayed not really asking but demanding.”
God delivered. Velma kept up her studies in
advanced classes, reading heavily and excelling
in math. She helped her mother complete the
family’s U.S. income tax forms while in high
school, even helping other relatives once they
learned she could do the paperwork with ease.
After high school graduation – Velma was
the first generation in her family to earn a high
school diploma – she married and then
divorced after the birth of her first child. She
soon met Joel Solorzano and dated him for
seven years before they married. The couple
had two children together.
A few years later, Solorzano was working at
the post office and had been considering college for some time, knowing something was
missing from her otherwise happy life. Her
mother had encouraged her years earlier to be
an attorney, but that dream felt so far away.
One day at work, she injured her back while
lifting and spent the next three months in a
wheelchair with a herniated disc. She returned
to the post office for six more years doing light
duty and one day decided it was time to pur-
footprints 11
Now, I really thank
God for everything
I’ve lived through in
my life, especially the
bad. He’s allowed me
to live through that so
I can help someone
else know where to
go.”
Velma Solorzano
12 footprints
sue education again. Husband Joel
pledged his support… on one condition.
“He said he’d support me (in
going back to school) if I promised I
would not drop out but would go all
the way,” she smiled. She soon
enrolled at Wayland, starting her
bachelor’s degree in business in her
30s. She earned the BBA in 2001 in
management and marketing, graduating with high honors. Then she
continued on, earning the MBA in
human resource management in
2003 from Wayland.
Very soon thereafter, she applied
for law school at Texas Tech
University, earning a full Regent’s
Scholarship for her education.
“The Lord put everything together
for us perfectly. I don’t regret any of
it – it was all God’s plan,” she said.
Part of that plan was dealing with
some setbacks along the journey to
her law degree. During her time at
Wayland, Velma’s son Isaias underwent surgery to remove a tumor
from his shoulder as well as openheart surgery. She was juggling fulltime school loads at WBU with a
part-time job at the post office. And
after she earned the bachelor’s
degree, Velma started a business
offering tax and other services for
businesses and individuals in
Plainview. She worked that job during
her master’s degree work, then handed it off to her son and her sister to
run while she concentrated on law
school, commuting to Lubbock from
her Plainview home the entire time.
She said the instruction she
received at Wayland during her
undergraduate and graduate degrees
was helpful in growing and running
Solorzano Services.
“I learned a lot from Dr. (Bobby)
Hall, Dr. (Claude) Lusk and Dr. (Ben)
Akande (all former business faculty
members),” she said. “I literally took
everything I learned there and
applied it to my business and
watched it grow. Throughout the
years I have been proud to recommend people to Wayland.”
Solorzano started law school in
August 2003 and earned her Doctor
of Jurisprudence degree in May
2006. Those years represented not
only a lot of highway miles but a lot
of hours in the library studying while
she juggled her family responsibilities
and kept a hand in her business
back in Plainview.
“Joel was very supportive of me
and had a plan in place to help me
out. He was working with the business by then too, but I had to really
struggle to be the A student I had
always been,” she said. “I don’t think
I realized until I graduated how
stressful that time was for me.”
In 2007, she took the bar exam,
delayed a few months due to her
mother’s stroke and recovery shortly
after she began studying for the test.
As soon as her license was in place,
she opened her law office, sharing
space with Paul Holloway in downtown Plainview. Her work consists
heavily of tax and immigration law
with some family and criminal law
coming into the picture as well. She
has a heart for immigration law and
hopes to dispel the myths about
immigration cases.
“Not everyone here illegally is
deportable,” she said. “Some are
here for asylum or other reasons.
Some people we’ve discovered are
not illegal residents at all.”
With a heart to help the underdog, Solorzano said she’d love to
dive a little more into disability
claims and other administrative law
issues. She is also considering starting a
nonprofit agency dedicated to immigration and civil rights cases that would allow
her to serve more people.
The family maintains Solorzano
Services as well, with husband Joel taking
the main lead on overseeing that office.
Son Isaias, a 2004 graduate of Wayland,
will finish his own law school degree in
May 2012 and hopes to join his mother in
her practice, specializing in tax law, and
helping with the tax service.
Though Solorzano has had offers to
expand her business into other branches,
she feels compelled to stay in Plainview
where her roots run deep.
“I really want to stay here until God
moves me. I think the reason I stay is I
want to serve my community and I take
pride in doing that,” she said.
Part of that service also includes putting an emphasis on education for coming
generations. To that end, she and Joel
started a scholarship fund called
Solorzano Scholarship Opportunities for
Latinos (SOL for short, after the Spanish
word for sun). The nonprofit foundation
provides funds to help students wanting
to improve their own situations through
education, something with which
Solorzano can identify fully. Since Joel did
not get to complete his own education, he
feels strongly that current students have
those opportunities and resources as well.
All of her hard work and juggling now
comes from the heart, as Velma sees her
chance to pay forward the blessings she’s
been given and help people live better
lives.
“I remember being in those fields and
wanting so badly to be better used for
God,” she said. “Now, I really thank God
for everything I’ve lived through in my life,
especially the bad. He’s allowed me to live
through that so I can help someone else
know where to go.”
Wayland alum runs
for President in 2012
A graduate of the Wayland campus in Albuquerque is running for President of the United States and says his book can
help set the American public straight.
David Aragon, a retired logging equipment mechanic who
lives south of New Mexico’s largest city, received a degree in
vocational education with a minor in business in 2004.
Aragon said he wrote “We Ain’t Too Bright” “even before
Obama was elected. It tells you how to end hate and prejudice.”
Aragon, who has never run for public office before, said he
frankly is “disappointed that politicians no longer care about the
American people but about their buddies and the people who
make them rich.”
He says big banks, insurance companies, other big business,
special interest groups and unions benefit from health care bills,
stimulus bills, environmental bills and the oil moratorium.
“If we take care of our debt, our economy will improve and
jobs will come back. Common sense tells us how to do this,
don’t spend more then you take in. But our government doesn’t
understand common sense. They just think taxpayers are an
unending bank account.”
Aragon said he has been “traveling throughout the country
at my own expense, talking to people in restaurants and on the
street and 95 percent agree with what I say.”
He’s hoping for “one good break” like getting on Fox talk
show host Sean Hannity’s program “so I can go right to the top.
I’m told I’m expendable but I’m a cowboy interested in horse
racing and I know horses like Secretariat and Seattle Slew came
from nowhere. You have to have a heart and the right state of
mind.”
Aragon said the Albuquerque paper and TV stations “really
don’t pay attention to me but I’ve been interviewed on radio
about my book. Mostly my campaign is by word of mouth. I’m
hoping to let the American people know for $1 to $1,000 they’ll
get a politician who will represent them…not another one who’ll
be wasting their money.”
More information is available at www.aragonforpresident.com
footprints 13
New Beginnings
Adoption brings challenges to WBU alums
By Teresa Young
Nothing was
working, and I
remember my doctor
asking me why I
thought I wasn’t
getting pregnant. I
told him it was just
part of God’s plan
for my life.”
Stephany Gaines
WBU ‘93
14 footprints
F
or the past 17 years, Jay and Stephany Gaines have
grown accustomed to life as a couple, enjoying the
freedom of travel and things that come with having no
children. But in the past year, their world has been dramatically
changed thanks to one 12-year-old boy.
Meet Jonathan, legally adopted by the Gaines family on June
22, 2011. Before that, Jonathan spent eight years in foster care
in Popayan, Colombia, the last five with the same family.
But now, home is Austin, Texas, where Stephany works as an
intervention specialist at a middle school in the Leander school
district and Jay is network administrator at Plains Capital Bank.
Stephany is a 1993 graduate of Wayland, and Jay left WBU in
1993 then transferred to Texas Tech.
The two married in 1994 after dating at Wayland and began
the typical life of a young, married couple with careers. Loving
their jobs in Lubbock, the two did not really think about starting
a family until their tenth anniversary. But things didn’t take off
the way as they expected.
“It just didn’t happen, and we couldn’t figure out why, and
the doctors couldn’t figure out why,” Stephany recalls, noting
that the couple tried a few simpler procedures early on in the
process. “Nothing was working, and I remember my doctor asking me why I thought I wasn’t getting pregnant. I told him it was
just part of God’s plan for my life.”
With the hormones and procedures and stress weighing heavily on both of them after a while, the Gaineses finally opted to
take a hiatus from the process and enjoy life. After a family vacation to Hawaii, they began talking about adoption options. They
signed on with a Christian adoption agency, did all the paper-
Jay and Stephany
Gaines spent five
weeks in Colombia,
immersing themselves in the culture,
prior to bringing
home their new son,
Jonathan
work, orientation and home study and
then began the wait for a match. It was
a long wait.
“I just had to keep relying on my
faith and the wonderful husband God
gave me,” Stephany recalls. “It was a
hard time.”
Then in the spring of 2010, their
church was promoting a visit by a
group of orphans from Colombia
through a program called Kid Save
International. The organization brings
older adoptable children to the U.S. to
stay with host families who have an
interest in adoption. The child would
live for the month of July in their
home and they would have a chance
to continue the adoption process afterward if they felt good about the match.
“We read through a lot of information and all the children’s files, and it
was nearly the last minute, but we
really felt led to do that,” Stephany
said. “We selected Jonathan, and at
the last minute they asked if we would
host another boy, though we knew we
didn’t want to adopt two at one time.”
Stephany’s world was turned
upside-down. A school teacher who is
used to her summers off, she said she
spent the entire month of July doing
laundry and entertaining two pre-teen
boys. It was a challenge.
After the boys returned home, she
and Jay prayed heavily about whether
they’d continue the process. She
admits some personal struggling,
especially in taking in a boy the age of
her students in middle school. Jay,
however, was thrilled with an older
child and was 100 percent sure
Jonathan was meant to be theirs.
“God really flipped a switch for
me,” she laughs. They then submitted
their letter of intent, found an adoption
agency in Minnesota that worked with
Colombia and Kid Save and began the
process of paperwork and the waiting
game. They were right in the middle of
all those forms, notarizing and legal
work when things came to a screeching halt. Stephany’s mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
She began spending more time
with her mother, who lived in Midland,
and traveling with her to MD Anderson
footprints 15
hospital in Houston for treatment. In the meantime, she and Jay would get
to visit with Jonathan by phone every week. Despite the initial language barrier, they eventually began to understand more and build their relationship.
Knowing her time was short, Stephany’s mother dreamed of just being
able to spend more time with her soon-to-be new grandson before her
death. Surprisingly, the agency called to say another group of
children would be visiting in December and Jonathan
wanted to come for a visit with them. It was answer to
the family’s prayer and resulted in great holiday time
with Stephany’s mom.
Along the way, the adoption process continued,
with occasional hiccups that Stephany said was
just part of the journey but did cause some
delays. As it turns out, they were all part of
God’s perfect plan. Stephany’s mom died on
Mother’s Day, and two weeks later, the
Gaineses got the call to travel to Colombia and
officially adopt their son.
“Now we know why we had those setbacks. God
had orchestrated everything perfectly,” Stephany said,
noting that if the call came before her mother’s death she
likely would have delayed traveling. “We call Jonathan our
little rainbow after our storm.”
She and Jay, along with Stephany’s father for
the first two weeks, made the trip to South
America on June 1, then settled in for what
would be a five-week “vacation” while
they went through the final steps to
legally adopt Jonathan and bring
him home. Stephany said the trip
was long, but the family enjoyed
being able to immerse themselves in Jonathan’s culture
and traditions so they can
appreciate his background. It also makes
her empathize for the
12-year-old who has
now been set down
into a new
American world
with new customs
and a new language.
The process in Colombia involved
a five-day bonding period with a
social worker, approval by the judges
and authorities, more paperwork,
passports and a six-hour side trip to
his birth town to retrieve his birth
certificate. The doctor at the
American embassy in Bogota had to
do a physical as well and then they
waited for the Visa to be approved.
They were finally approved to return
to Texas with Jonathan toward the
end of the month and left on July 1.
The challenge now is raising a
pre-teen boy with little grasp of the
English language and keeping him
entertained during the summer
months before school starts.
Jonathan will be in seventh grade at
Stephany’s school, though she won’t
be his teacher. He’ll have support
from the English Language Learners
teacher in his classes but she knows
it will be a major change to be in a
big American school with less strict
rules than he is accustomed. Even
things like multiple choices in the
school cafeteria can be overwhelming
to the new Austinite.
But Stephany knows he’ll do
alright.
“He’s such a trooper, really. He is
very courageous, and I admire him
for that. He said this is what he has
been dreaming of, to have a family,”
she said. “He asked me one day why
I didn’t have any children and I told
him, ‘We never knew why we couldn’t
but now we know that God wanted
us to have you.’”
The language barrier has been
difficult on the new parents as well,
and Stephany says she and Jay rely
on hand motions and Google
Translate often to communicate. She
is longing for the day when they can
have a meaningful conversation with
full understanding. The family’s
neighbors, coincidentally, are from
Colombia, so they are able to communicate well with Jonathan and
make him feel welcome. Jonathan is
adapting to new foods – the Gaineses
love spicy Tex-Mex food and he’s not
used to that – as well as a new
extended family and a new church
home.
The adjustment is for everyone,
including the family’s 8-year-old
Yorkie named Lucky, who was diagnosed with cancer just after they
returned from Colombia. In all of the
trials, struggles and heartaches,
Stephany said she’s learned to find
the joys and the blessings and her
faith has been strengthened.
“My mantra through all this has
been ‘strength will rise as we wait
upon the Lord’ because I am so
impatient and do not like to wait. For
so many years I would go to
women’s conferences and hear these
great testimonies, and I would think
how boring I was,” she laughs. “Now I
think I have some struggles that have
given me a testimony for God’s glory.
He allows us to struggle so other
people can see us struggle and see
how we react.”
“We are just celebrating this gift
God has given us.”
footprints 17
Body slams for Jesus
S
WBU alum
finds a home
in the ring
with Christian
Wrestling
Federation
18 footprints
ince he was a child, Michael
Watt has loved professional
wrestling, watching it regularly
while growing up. He even considered
attending wrestling school to get into
the business himself once he got out of
high school.
But then God got hold of Watt, and
called him into the ministry. Soon, the
Harlingen native found himself at
Wayland Baptist University, where he
earned a religion degree in 2001.
It was in his senior year that Watt got
the opportunity to revisit his love of
wrestling and marry it with his newfound call as a minister of the gospel.
During a chance encounter with a representative of the Christian Wrestling
Federation at the Youth Ministry
Conclave in the Metroplex, Watt learned
he could go through training in four
months and join the wrestling ministry.
He jumped at the chance.
“I just felt like it was something I
couldn’t NOT do,” he recalled of the
opportunity.
He and wife Blanda, also a 2001
Wayland graduate, decided to step out
in faith and take the plunge. They
moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area –
CWF is based out of Rockwall – and
began the search for jobs. Blanda got a
teaching job with a private school, even-
tually serving as the assistant principal.
Michael worked at Target and had a few
other odd jobs to work around his
wrestling.
Once his training was completed, he
became a regular part of the volunteer
crew for CWF, traveling to the various
road shows and events and becoming a
regular character on the monthly house
shows held in Rockwall. As “Shiloh” in
the ring, Watt started as a good guy –
called a “face” in wrestling lingo – but
then became a bad guy, or “heel.”
Watt said the shows typically followed a similar format to wrestling
shows seen on TV or in other smaller
venues. The evening started with a few
matches, a storyline to delineate the
good and bad guys, drama between the
characters and more matches, leading
up to a final match and a conclusion to
the story. Sometimes the good guys win,
but sometimes – as in real life – the bad
guys seem to triumph. A gospel presentation by the group’s preacher ties the
storyline into the main purpose for the
show – winning people to Christ.
“I’ve had a fantastic time with this,
and God has really done some amazing
things with this ministry,” Watt said.
“Once while we were in California, a
biker gang came to the show to make
continued on Page 23
Renew your membership in the
Wayland
CENTURY
CLUB
Whether you’re just starting out in your
career or an alumnus of many years, the
Century Club is an affordable way to
support your alma mater financially.
For $100 donation or more per year,
Century Club members can be part of the
amazing work going on at Wayland Baptist
University, where we are helping students
seek their dream and lives are being
impacted for God’s kingdom.
Century Club members for 2010-11
can be assured that their gifts are making
an impact across the WBU system to meet
needs in facilities, technology and other
areas. Renew now!
Every gift counts in this effort, and
every alumni should be a part of the
Century Club. Contact us today to join!
For information, contact the Office of Advancement:
1900 W. 7th St., CMB 621 s Plainview, Texas 79072
Mike Melcher: 806.291.3431
New Beginnings
Quezada opens business to serve community
By Teresa Young
PT school was
hard, but Wayland
really prepared me.
The science department (at Wayland) is
really tough but it
prepared me for that
hard level of work,”
Noelia Quezada
WBU ‘02
20 footprints
Noelia Quezada has known since she was a girl that she
wanted to work in a profession that helped people, and after
watching her father go through physical therapy for a shoulder
repair as a teen, she knew she found the perfect fit.
Now, years later, Quezada is not only a physical therapist herself, she is also the co-owner of her own company providing
such services to her hometown community.
Quezada is a native of Petersburg and came to Wayland to
study biology, minoring in chemistry. During her undergraduate
work, she would occasionally do observations with a few local
therapists, and she knew she was heading in the right direction.
She served as a cheerleader for Wayland for three years and was
president of the Zeta Zeta Zeta sorority.
After graduating in 2002, she applied for physical therapy
school at Texas Tech, where she had hoped to attend and stay
close to home. She was accepted almost on the spot and began
the graduate degree that fall. By this time, she was married to
Steven Quezada, a former baseball player at Wayland who graduated in 2002 with his criminal justice degree. While she commuted for PT school full-time, Steven served as assistant coach
under Brad Bass for the Pioneer baseball program.
“PT school was hard, but Wayland really prepared me. The
science department (at Wayland) is really tough but it prepared
me for that hard level of work,” she recalls.
After graduating in 2005 with the master’s degree from Tech,
she began working in a Plainview nursing facility. Because the
Tech program required so many hours, she was able to apply
much of her coursework toward the doctorate degree at Arizona
School of Health Sciences and completed many of the remaining
credits online.
She was also working full-time as a therapist, and the couple
would soon start their family. Son Marcello, now almost 4, was
Noelia Quezada
works on a
patient’s shoulder
demonstrating
some exercises to
improve range of
motion.
born while she was finishing her last year of the
degree, and she recalls studying often with the infant
on her lap. He was six months old when she earned the
doctorate in March 2008.
During that time, Noelia was also working on the
side with some home health agencies providing contract therapy work for patients both at homes and at
the hospital. She also works with a nursing home in
Olton as an independent contractor, a role she’s held
since 2007. She said she enjoyed the home health
experience greatly because of its practicality.
“Home health is one-on-one and is exactly what the
patient needs,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’m doing
some random exercises with them, because we are in
their home. We know exactly how many steps they
need to go to the front door.”
After juggling all those tasks for a while, Quezada
decided she really wanted to provide a service to
Plainview area patients and streamline the process for
agencies and healthcare entities in the area. So in
2010, she and Steven opened Access Hometown
Therapy, which contracts physical therapists for
patients in the region.
The business, which the Quezadas run from their
home, coordinates care primarily for home health
agencies on a contract basis. She said the format is
helpful for the agencies that are not out the expense of
hiring a full-time physical therapist. This gives them a
resource for those occasional needs and saves money
in a market that has a short supply of therapists.
The format is also helpful for the contracted physical therapists who work for Quezada, since they have
the flexibility of work hours. While she serves as the
coordinator and scheduler for patients and caregivers,
Quezada makes sure she stays in the loop as well.
“I usually keep a pretty full load for myself, though
I’d like to someday hire someone else to help as well,”
she said. “I want the business to grow enough that I
can stay out of it some but I love the patient care
aspect as well.”
Quezada utilizes a special software program that
helps coordinate the care and make the paperwork
involved in treatment something easy to manage for
the contracted therapists. The business is practically
paperless, relying on current technology to make the
job as easy as possible on all persons involved.
Access serves a 30-mile radius around Plainview
ordinarily, but Quezada said she has gone further to
help out patients in need in areas that aren’t as easily
served. Being from this region helps, she said, because
she knows the community and its people and can meet
their needs. Being bilingual doesn’t hurt either.
Quezada said the field of physical therapy is highly
rewarding, though sometimes patients aren’t as excited
continued on Page 23
footprints 21
Athletics in Brief
Sadler, McLean, Loppnow recognized
Sadler receives national
faculty recognition
Wayland Baptist University professor and Dean of the School of
Religion and Philosophy Dr. Paul
Sadler was recognized recently for his
work with WBU athletics, receiving the
Wally Schwartz
Award at the 70th
Annual NAIA
Sadler
National Convention
Awards Banquet in
Kansas City, Mo.
Sadler, who just completed his
21st year in Wayland’s School of
Religion, has served as the Faculty
Athletics Representative (FAR) for
the past 15 years. The Schwartz
award is presented to the FAR of
the year as voted on by peers.
As Wayland’s Faculty Athletic
Representative, Sadler works with
coaches and students to determine
athletes’ eligibility based on academic achievement and other criteria.
“It’s number crunching,” Sadler
said. “But what I enjoy is that it
gives me contact with students who
I otherwise would not be in contact
with. You get to see a lot of success
stories, and you have to deal with a
few sad situations where students
are not eligible to play.”
Sadler took over the FAR position at Wayland 15 years ago when
then FAR Emmitt Tipton left the
classroom to take the position of
Dean of Students. Guidelines specifically state that the FAR must be a
faculty member. Sadler, who was
working at the time as the public
22 footprints
address announcer at Wayland basketball games, was asked to take
over the role. Sadler has never
regretted taking the position, saying
it gives him a chance to watch students enjoy what they do.
McLean named NAIA
Champion of Character
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The
National Association of
NAIA Indoor National Champion
(4x400M relay); and NAIA AllAmerican on multiple occasions. He
has been recognized with the UPS
Scholarship, Spinning Wheel Award,
Pioneer Scholarship and Rookie of
the Year honors for International
Choir. He was also a member of the
Wayland Baptist Dean's List and
played the lead role of the Big Bad
Wolf in a production of Little Red
Riding Hood.
Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA)
announced that
Caleb McLean, a
national champion in
track and field and
music major at
Wayland Baptist
McLean
University, was
selected to receive
the 2011 NAIA Dr. LeRoy Walker
Champions of Character Award. The
award is named after Dr. Walker,
President emeritus of the United
States Olympic Committee who
served as president through the
1996 Atlanta Summer Games. Dr.
Walker is a graduate of Benedict
College (S.C.) and a former president of the NAIA.
The senior from Fort Worth
Texas, was a standout student-athlete excelling in the classroom and
on the track as a member of the
men's indoor and outdoor teams.
McLean, who has become an
extraordinary example of how to
approach academic and athletic
excellence, is well known for his
accomplishments on the track,
among them: 2010 Outdoor
National Champion (team); 2010
Loppnow earns NAIA
All-American honors
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -The National
Association of Intercollegiate
Athletics (NAIA) announced the
2011 Men's Golf All-Americans and
Wayland Baptist's Michael Loppnow
is a member of the
First Team for the
third straight year.
Golfers were selected by the AllAmerica committee.
Fifteen student-athLoppnow
letes were named to
the First and Second
Teams.
The senior from Cape Town,
South Africa, wrapped up his fouryear Pioneer career by finishing in a
tie for fourth place at the NAIA
Men's Golf Championship, earning
All-Tournament honors for the third
consecutive year.
Loppnow is one of four golfers
that headlined the 2011 AllAmerican list as four-time honorees.
He was a second team All-American
as a freshman and received first
team recognition in each of his last
three seasons.
from Page 21
to see the therapist.
“Some people joke that PT stands for pain and torture, and sometimes the patients are not looking forward to us coming if they are hurting at the time,” she
said. “But we are really serving someone and using all
this information we studied so hard to learn to help
them get better and have less pain. It is very rewarding.
Some people remember you years later and appreciate
what you’ve done for them. It really is a skill.”
Noelia said she also tries to incorporate many of the
current technologies into the practice of physical therapy as well, all for the benefit of patients. Some of those
include research-based treatments and modalities such
as ultrasound, phonophoresis, electrical stimulation and
the like, to which most people don’t have access.
Patients are also treated to Quezada’s energy and
enthusiasm for her work, which she said is a plus.
“I really am such a cheerleader, and I use all my
energy to support them and encourage them,” she said.
“But by the time I get home I am just spent. It takes a
lot of energy to do all that.”
The business has been going well, and Quezada is
staying busy. She had been doing all the office work
and administration as well as carrying a full patient
load. Then in December, husband Steven joined her to
take over the administrative side of the business including payroll, billing and keeping files updated. Noelia
stays involved through quality assurance and file maintenance.
The arrangement frees them both up to spend more
time with son Marcello.
So far, things seem to be going well for the
Quezadas, though Noelia said it was an intimidating
venture at first.
“It was scary to get started. I prayed about it a lot,”
she said. “It was pretty stressful, but I just knew that it
would work out. We just trusted God that’s what we
were supposed to do.”
from Page 18
fun of us and ended up getting
saved. In Christian wrestling, there’s
a lot of skepticism among people,
but we were able to reach a lot of
people who wouldn’t come to
church on Sunday but would come
out to the matches on Friday night.”
During his heaviest involvement
with the CWF, Watt was able to travel with the group to a special mission trip to Nigeria and to Egypt.
While Nigeria is primarily a Muslim
country, Watt noted that the greatest number of salvations came
when the group performed their
show in the heaviest Muslim areas
in the city. In Egypt, the results
were similar.
“We really saw God working and
doing some cool stuff there,” he
recalled. “It was one of those things
you don’t forget.”
The Watts moved to Lubbock in
early 2010 for Michael to take the
role of part-time children’s minister
at Calvary Baptist Church. He trans-
ferred with Target and kept that job
as well. Unfortunately, the move
meant less involvement with CWF.
He went on staff full-time at Calvary
in February 2011.
While Watt is not able to do the
monthly CWF shows in Rockwall, he
has been able to travel some with
the group and participate in events
that come through West Texas as
his schedule will allow. The group
did a performance at Calvary’s fall
festival in 2010 and he was able to
participate.
When he does get to wrestle, he
relishes the chance to not only use
his passion for the sport to weave
into the gospel message but also to
visit with children and adults who
really feel the impact of the presentation. He served as the group’s
preacher for seven years and said
those memories are precious.
“In wrestling there is something
called K-Fabe, which is staying in
character. We break that a lot in the
Christian wrestling scene because
we want to be real with the fans,”
he said. “The wrestlers often get to
do the follow-up part with folks who
come forward and visit with the
kids afterwards and we love that
part. But we don’t want to do that
as the bad guys.”
Watt said CWF has about 8-10
in-house members regularly, all of
whom are volunteers for the ministry. Other Christian wrestlers from
the Metroplex who wrestle in small
promotions often will come out and
join them.
He said a dream of his would be
to start a branch of CWF in West
Texas, giving him the opportunity to
involve people from the Lubbock
area and reaching a wider audience
with the gospel message, disguised
in patterned spandex.
Those interested in visiting with
Watt about such a promotion can
contact him by email at mike@calvarylubbock.org.
footprints 23
News In Brief
Homecoming dates will change for 2012
With the start of football games
in the fall of 2012, Wayland will be
moving Homecoming from February
(where it has been held since 2006)
to October – we just don’t know yet
exactly what date.
That’s because we’re still trying
to nail down the best weekend that
obviously doesn’t coincide with Fall
Break since it’s not too advisable to
have a game with all the students
having gone home.
A decision on Fall Break 2012
won’t be made until the 2011
school year begins in late August.
We hope you’ll plan on being a
face in the crowd for that first
Homecoming football game since
1940. By the way, Wayland hasn’t
been defeated or even scored on
since then.
So, stay tuned and we’ll get the
word out on an exact date and
more information in subsequent
Footprints, e-mail, Facebook and
other communications.
DeMerritt Earns Doctorate
in Higher Education
Wayland Baptist University
Assistant Academic Vice President
Stan DeMerritt was awarded his
Doctor of Philosophy degree in
higher education from Texas Tech
University in a ceremony on May
14.
DeMerritt, who has worked at
Wayland since graduating with a
bachelor’s degree in 1995, has
served in his current position for
the last five years. A graduate of
Artesia High School in Artesia, N.M.,
DeMerritt also holds an associate’s
24 footprints
degree from New Mexico State
University and a
Master of Education
degree from
Wayland.
DeMerritt’s dissertation research
focused on deterDeMerritt mining if there is a
correlation between
nontraditional student risk classifications and motivation. He said that
the number of students demonstrating non-traditional characteristics is growing in the United States.
These characteristics include being
married, having dependents in the
household, fulltime employment,
attending school as a part-time student and waiting a few years after
high school to enter college. He surveyed students with these characteristics at three universities
throughout the southern U.S., looking at motivational tendencies.
Daniel name president of
COMETS 2011-12
Dr. Dean Daniel, executive director and campus
dean at Wayland
Baptist University in
Wichita Falls has
been named president of COMETS for
2011-12.
Daniel was
Daniel
installed at the 19th
Annual Conference of COMETS,
which stands for the Council on
Military Education in Texas and the
South, held April 11-13 in
Oklahoma City. The organization
was founded in 1992 to promote
and support quality education programs available to military personnel, their dependents and
Department of Defense civilians stationed within Arkansas, Louisiana,
Oklahoma and Texas.
The group exists to handle
issues that jointly affect military
personnel and families, college educators and professional organizations concerned with academic and
vocational education. They also
work with government and academic organizations to support purposes of COMETS and recognize
achievements of those who contribute to the advancement of education in the four-state region.
Daniel served as president-elect
during the 2010-11 year on a
board that also included treasurer
Dr. Jim Antenen, Wayland’s executive director and campus dean in
San Antonio. He succeeds Rita
Russ, dean of the Virtual University
for the University of the Incarnate
Word. The president-elect serves
primarily as the program chairman
for the conference.
Copeland named to head
Albuquerque Campus
Dr. John Copeland, executive
director and campus dean at
Wayland Baptist
University’s campus
in Fairbanks, Alaska,
will be the new director of the
Albuquerque campus
effective July 1.
Copeland replaces
Copeland
Dr. Ben Craver, who has served in
Albuquerque since May 2007. He
will be returning to the San Antonio
campus – where he previously
served as director of institutional
advancement for five years – in the
role of Assistant Executive Director
of Community Relations and
Extension Services. Craver was also
previously a pastor in various Texas
cities, and he holds faculty status
with WBU as an associate professor
in religion.
Copeland has been at the helm
of the Fairbanks campus since
September 2002, coming to
Wayland from the pastorate in
Eagle River and a role as an
adjunct professor in religion. He is
also an assistant professor of religion at Wayland. He holds degrees
from North Georgia College,
Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary and Fuller Theological
Seminary.
Cox takes position as
Director of Counseling
Michael Cox has always known
he was called to help people, and
he realized his passion for counseling
several years ago. He
also loves ministering
to young people,
which he’s done
since his early days
as a youth pastor.
Cox
So it seems his
new role as Wayland Baptist
University’s coordinator of counseling, career and disability services is
nearly tailor-made to Cox’s interests
and heart for his alma mater.
Cox took over as counselor officially on June 1, coming to WBU
from the role as deputy project
director for the Rural Children’s
Initiative, a mental health project
funded by a special six-year federal
grant and overseen by the Central
Plains Mental Health/Mental
Retardation center.
A native of Hobbs, N.M., Cox
earned his bachelor’s degree in religion from Wayland in 1998 and
completed his master of arts in
counseling degree in 2010.
Buford named to SBOE
review committee
With much of the education talk
swirling around concerns over TAKS
scores in math, science, reading and
writing, it’s easy to
forget that the Texas
State Board of
Education places
emphasis on teachBuford
ing the arts as well.
In fact, not only is
education in the fine arts encouraged, but it is mandated by Senate
Bill 815.
This summer, Wayland Baptist
University professor of music Dr.
Debra Flournoy-Buford, will sit on
an expert review committee, formed
by the SBOE, to review TEKS for all
levels of music education within
Texas public schools. Buford’s
name was submitted to the SBOE
by Bob Floyd, president of the
Texas Music Educators Association.
In order to serve on the review
committee one must be nominated
by two SBOE members. SBOE Chair
Gail Lowe and Vice Chair on the
Committee on Instruction Terri Leo
nominated Buford. She is one of six
from throughout the state who will
serve on the committee.
“I’m thrilled to death and kind
of scared,” Buford said. “This is
such a huge responsibility. I’m
excited that I was even considered
as someone who is knowledgeable
enough to do something like this.”
Music TEKS are broken into four
groups: Kindergarten through second grade, grades 3-5, grades 6-8
and high school. Committees are
set up to review the TEKS in each
group. Suggestions are sent to the
expert review committee that will
oversee all four subdivisions.
Revisions will be made to the TEKS
by the expert committee which will
then present the revision for discussion with the SBOE.
Albuquerque, Hawaii
campuses on the move
Wayland’s campuses in
Albuquerque, N.M., and Aiea, Hawaii
will be relocating in the coming
months to new locations. The
Albuquerque campus, which has
been housed with the Baptist
Convention of New Mexico on
Wyoming Boulevard, will be moving
to a shopping center at San Pedro
and Interstate 40 in the fall. Dr.
John Copeland, who has been
director of the Fairbanks campus
for WBU, moved to the
Albuquerque campus in July.
The Hawaii campus, which has
been under the direction of Dr. Jeff
Barnes, is moving in early fall to a
complex in Mililani, about eight
miles from its current location in
the Aiea Town Square.
Both new locations will provide
needed additional space for classes
and offices for the growing campuses.
footprints 25
The President’s Pen
We truly are,
‘Wayland of the World’
hen James Henry Wayland gave
the founding gift of land and
money to birth this school at the
beginning of the last century, I don’t imagine
he ever dreamed that this university would
become a truly worldwide institution of higher
learning. This institution has done just that,
however. We really are Wayland of the world.
Our largest campus in terms of headcount
is not in a geographical location at all—it is our
virtual (online) campus. Students from around
the world are taking courses at Wayland,
including members of our armed forces stationed almost everywhere on the globe.
Our Wayland Mission Center and Baptist
Student Ministry programs take and send students and adults to numerous national and
international locations to do the work of the
Kingdom every year. This past year, individuals
involved in our nursing program went on an
international mission trip to help disadvantaged
citizens of the third world receive excellent
medical treatment.
Several of our Academic Schools make
trips every year to expose those who study at
Wayland to the dynamics of our global relationships and to represent Christ in other nations.
Under the leadership of Dr. Bobby Hall,
Wayland’s Provost and Executive Vice President,
international study opportunities will increase.
Students who take advantage of such opportunities find them to be life-changing.
We have established an initial partnership
with Universidad Cristiana de Las Americas in
Mexico, which we believe may well give us significant student and faculty exchange possibilities. Possibilities in China are also emerging.
The truth is, the list goes on and on. In so
many ways, Wayland really is a global institution of faith-based higher learning. We are
proud of and grateful for the opportunities God
continues to give us.
Good things are happening everywhere in
the Wayland system.
In Plainview, our new men’s dorm is well
W
Dr. Paul Armes
“
In so many
ways, Wayland
really is a global
institution of
faith-based higher learning. We
are proud of and
grateful for the
opportunities
God continues
to give us.
”
underway and is currently on schedule to be
completed next summer. Fall registration looks
very positive. The leadership class of Wayland’s
re-born football program will arrive on campus
this fall. Over the next 18 months, we will be
investing several million dollars in infrastructure
improvements and deferred maintenance
remediation on our Plainview campus. Dr.
Claude Lusk, Vice President of Enrollment
Management, is doing an excellent job coordinating our preparation for the new students
coming our way. You should know that these
new students are not just coming for football.
More and more are coming to Wayland for the
excellent educational and spiritual experience
that are the heart and soul of this school.
Our external campus program is also
vibrant and expanding. New opportunities have
emerged in the Rio Grande Valley and in South
Texas. Our San Antonio campus continues to
grow at a significant rate, and although we
moved the School of Nursing to a new location
in leased facilities near our current campus on
I-35, we are already out of room and will need
to find ways of increasing our capacity in the
very near future. We have excellent administrative leadership in Dr. Elane Seebo, Vice
President for External Campuses and Graduate
Services, and the Executive Directors who coordinate each Wayland campus location.
We are preparing for our annual audit and
Mr. Jim Smith, our CFO, always gives excellent
leadership to this process. Jim is one of those
guys who actually love audits! Pray for him…
While you’ve read this statement from me
before, let me affirm once more that your partnership with Wayland is extraordinarily important to us. The Federal and State assistance
available for our students are being reduced,
and institutionally self-funded scholarships are
being used at ever-expanding rates. Your gifts
help make those scholarships possible.
Thanks for your support of Wayland. We
are grateful for your gifts and your prayers.
Grace and peace…
What the President is Reading: Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne; Cultivating the Spirit:
How College Can Enhance Students’ Inner Lives by Alexander W. Astin, Helen S. Astin and Jennifer A.
Lindholm; The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
26 footprints
Thinking Out Loud
Remembering the ‘Good old Days,’
Anticipating those to come
ack in 1971 – could that really be
40 years ago? – I was about to
graduate from Wayland and get on
with a career at The Plainview Daily Herald. I
was really identifying with a song by Carly
Simon called “Anticipation.”
The opening lines say:
We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway, yay!
And I wonder if I’m really with you now
Or just chasin’ after some finer day
The refrain says:
Anticipation, anticipation
Is makin’ me late
Is keepin’ me waitin’
And the song closes:
These are the good old days
And stay right here ‘cause these are the
good old days.
Well, the older we get, the more we seem
to be looking back on what we thought were
the good old days – like the unbelievable
charge of $62.50 a month, all bills paid, to
live in the palatial concrete-block Collier Hall
married-student apartments.
Carolyn and I bought our first bill of groceries when we married in 1969 and brought
home four bags to Collier for the princely
sum of $20. Now, you can get about half a
bag for 20 bucks.
Oh yeah, the good old days: Wouldn’t you
love to be making the salary you are today
and paying less than $100 a month for a
place to live and $20 for a week or two worth
of food? Man, talk about living on “Easy
Street.”
Besides anticipating a degree, some of the
other anticipations in my life – and maybe
you can identify – include:
n Babies – and we know many of our
alums (parents, grandparents, great-grands)
have experienced that in the last few months.
Don’t forget to let us know the details and
we’ll send you a cute Wayland T-shirt for the
newcomer.
n Moves – across town, across the state,
across the nation, to another part of the
B
world. We get several “I’ve changed my
address” or “I’ve got a new e-mail” from
Waylandites every week and I can’t tell you
how important that is to help us keep up with
you.
n New jobs – either because you have
new and exciting opportunities and some,
unfortunately, for negative reasons…and yet
there still is an anticipation.
n Responsibilities – because you have
eagerly volunteered to take on a new and
challenging task or because you have been
“volunteered” by someone else for a task that
frankly kind of scares you.
n Spirituality – anticipating a child or
someone else you love and are concerned
about making their profession of faith in
Christ; anticipating the Holy Spirit inspiring
you to move to “higher ground;” anticipating
your church getting off “high center” and
finding a new excitement and energy in being
“salt and light” to your community.
A particular line in that song caught my
attention. While we always want to be growing
and improving – certainly in our Christian
walk – the “finer day” we may be chasing
actually may be the good old days that are
right here….right now.
I believe a lot of our alumni are waiting to
support their alma mater when a finer financial day comes but, if they stopped and
reflected on the good old days – the great
education and the great memories they made
while a student – they might sense the need
to give what they can now because “we can
never know about the days to come.”
A little systematically can result in quite a
bit over the long haul. Reflecting on how fast
40 years have flown by, had I put aside an
average of $12 a week (probably less at the
start and quite a bit more in my “advancing
years”) I could be finishing an endowed
scholarship.
Anticipation…I don’t know about the days
to come but I don’t want that to keep me
waiting or make me late in doing what I need
to do to benefit Wayland Baptist University.
Danny Andrews
Director of Alumni
Development
“
I don’t know
about the days to
come but I don’t
want that to keep
me waiting or make
me late in doing
what I need to do to
benefit Wayland
Baptist University.
”
footprints 27
Development
Legacies for Eternity
Scholarships represent varied histories, wishes
A trip through the endowed scholarship files
at Wayland reveals a few notable things. For
one, there are a lot of files. That means that
many people over the course of Wayland’s history have been generous with their resources in
hopes of helping students in need continue
their education. Some of these files are dated
many decades ago and are still awarding scholarships yearly despite their donors’ passing
into glory many years back.
Another notable discovery is the variety of
criteria that have been set for the various
scholarships. While a good number are available to any students with financial need, many
do have stipulations such as the major or academic school of the student, their grade point
average and their extracurricular activities.
Some are even limited to students from a particular county, city or church membership.
All this amounts to great gifts for our students each year, helping them to fund their
quality WBU experience and improve their
Barton and Harriett Smith
Abercrombie
Malouf and Iris Abraham
J. C. "Runt" Adams
Charles and Evelyn Aiken
Carolyn Foreman Albano
Music
Dallas Alford Memorial
Alumni Years of Service
American Negro
Lee and Alma Anderson
James Willis and Carrie
Apple Memorial
Loretta Austin Heritage
Hattie Price Baker
Florence Bankole
Dr. Glenn Barnett Memorial
Peyton and Ola Barrington
Ruby Barrow
Charles and Rosalene Bassett
John M. Bayne Memorial
28 footprints
Maudie Bearden Elementary
Education
Maudie Bearden Religion
Roy and Mary Beasley
Faye Connell Carter Beason
Ted and Carol Bell Memorial
Keith Bennett
James Q. Davis and Thelma
Davis Benton
Dudley and Lorene Berry
Glenn D. and Betty J. Bickel
Amelia Bishop
J. Ivyloy Bishop
Greg Black Memorial
J. D. and Hazel Blackburn
David and Mary Bolding
Ray Allen Boles
Roy and Audrey Boles
Raymond and Mae Bomar
Dr. J. Hoyt and Joanne Bowers
Arthur E. Boyd
lives. We believe the investment folks have
made in Wayland and her students is a worthwhile one and a kingdom investment, since
many students either find a relationship with
Christ while here, strengthen an existing relationship or surrender to God’s call to missions
or vocational ministry. Those are dollars well
spent in our opinion.
The following list represents the names of
the scholarships we currently have “on the
books” as well as some new ones started in
memory or in honor of folks and which are
awaiting donations to reach the $25,000 mark
that makes them fully endowed. If you wish to
make a donation to any particular fund, just
send your checks to WBU Advancement, 1900
W. 7th, CMB 621, Plainview, TX 79072 and
specify which fund to benefit.
For the full description of what each scholarship benefits, look for the PDF brochure on
our Web site at www.wbu.edu under “Friends
and Donors” and Endowed Scholarships.
Brian Family
Chester O. Bridges Scholarship
Archie Bale Brown
Thelma K. Brown
Wingo and Rosa Brown
Jeane Lee and Barbara Evans
Browning
Thomas N. and Billie Claire
Browning
Warren Bryant
Thomas Burgess Memorial
R. E. Campbell
Wendell and Juanita Campbell
E. H. Childress
Vance and Bertha Clapp
Class of 1954 Legacy
Class of 1958
Winnie Davis Bradley Cobb
Dr. Shelby Collier
Russell and Dee Compton
Gene Conley Memorial
Ada Cook
Kenneth Earl Cornebise
Memorial
Ernest F. Craigo
J.M. “Buck” Cunningham
Robert C. Davidson
Roy H. and Robbie W.
Davidson
Janis Davis Memorial
Patsy Davis
Davis Memorial
Frank R. Day
Jimmy and Donna Dean in loving memory of Ruth Dean
H. H. DeLozier Memorial
Rev. and Mrs. Edward C. Derr
P.E. and Helen Dever
Rickey Dickenson Memorial
Robert Joseph Dillman
Memorial Downtown Bible
Class of Lubbock
J.B. Duckett
Raymond and Frances Dunn
Cary and Sally Dillman Eaves
Frank and Thelma Brian
Evans
Elmer and Mamie Ewing
Charles and Evelyn Feris
Dr. James Finical
First Baptist Church of Olton
in Memory of Laura
Wilkerson Ledesma
The Flying Queen Foundation
Leon and Dorothy Foote
Marshall and Sharleen
Formby Missions
M. J. and Maxine Marsh
Foster
James B. and Yvonne J.
Franklin
Clara Brian Frazer Memorial
Friendship Baptist Church
Memorial
George Gabriel Memorial
Kyle Gabriel and Tiffany
Gabriel Wright
Max and Marcheta Gabriel
Felix E. and Sarah M. Gardner
Pat Garrison
Marsha Hutcherson George
Clara Gladden
Marvin and Mildred Goddard
Patricia K. George and J.
Patrick Godin
Rev. Jim Goins
Gomez Baptist Church
Goodnight Baptist Church
Earl and Ollie Greene
Alvin E. Griffin
T. Don and Holly Guthrie
John Hammond
Herbert E. and Margaret
Hannsz Memorial
Ralph and Lucille Hans
Bill and Nell Hardage
Eugene and Mattie Harris
Hart Camp Baptist Church
Gene and Louise Hawkins
Keith Hawkins
Hearst Foundation Science
and Math
Henry and Grace Heck
Clyde and Ruby Lee Herring
C. Wayne and Ruby Bruton
Hewett and Iona M. Hill
Lavonne Hodel
Truett & Bernice Hodnett
Gerald Lee Hollingsworth
Sarah Elizabeth Wayland
Housley
Fred and Sarah Howard
Gary Howell
K. W. Howell
Sam and Nettie Hughes
Claude Hutcherson Family
Mike Hutcherson Family
E. W. “Jack” Jackson
Vernon L. and Mary Wilson
Jackson
Dr. Dorothy Jamar Memorial
Jonathan Wade James
Laura Clark James
Lester W. (Bobby) James, Jr.
Lester W. James Sr.
H. D. and Ruby Janney
Jenkins-Selman Family
Joe and Terri (Brown) Jesko
Dr. David L. and Marie Hans
Jester Social Work
William L. Jester
Charles P. and Elizabeth E.
Jinks
Louise Joachim Math
R.C. Johnson, Jr.
Bessie and Roy Jones & FBC
Amarillo
Jesse and Mary Houston
Jones/Houston Foundation
Jodie and Bessie Covington
Jopling
Walter and Gladys Kaltwasser
Michael and Candace Keller
Loyd Kelley
Shirley Evans Kelly
Clinton and Gerry Kennedy
Laura Kemper Kimball
Lakeview Baptist Church
Sam S. Layman
Mang Pew Lee
Lone Star Baptist Church
Odie Pearl Lovvorn
H. V. Lynch
Arnold and Reuby Tom
Maeker
Robert C. and Bessie M.
Malone
Dan and Julia Manning
Katye Mansdoerfer Memorial
Marilyn Mansdoerfer
Memorial
Mary Elizabeth and Chauncy
Hugh Mansell
Blanton Martin Family
Raymond and Edith Martin
Rev. and Mrs. J. William
Mason
Mary Mathis Lubbock Center
Mauriene Smithson Matthews
Mayfield Baptist Church
Mays Presidential
Jessie McBrien Memorial
George and Mary Belle
McCleskey
Ralph McClung
Roy and Genelle McClung
Dr. Dorothy McCoy
Albert McCurdy
Delbert and Carolyn
McDougal
A. E. and Geneva McGilbery
John McMahan
Mr. and Mrs. Marvin McNutt
Dixie Howard Middleton
Lucile and Earl W. Miller
Eldon A. Milstead
Preston and Sibyl Mitchell
FBC Borger/Clarence and
Mildred Moore
Audrey and Lucian Morehead
Judith and Richard
Morehead
Ollie Morris
Dr. James H. Mosher
Martin L. and Linda M.
Murdock
Edward Reuel Nash
Oklahoma Lane Baptist
Church
Angus and Vera Ott
Dr. and Mrs. A. Hope Owen
Gene V. and Mary Frank
Owen
Dr. Estelle Owens
Pacific Islands
Virginia Palmer-Simpson
Grace Parkey
Dr. and Mrs. Francis Parks
Juanita Clepper Parks
Ailese Parten/Charlene Clay
Root
John and Joyce Swayze
Pennington
Edna Phillips
A & M Pinkus
Plainview Rotary Club
Donna Sue Plumlee
Russell A. and Velma M.
Porter
J.A. “Doc” and Melba Slater
Potts
David & Eliede Drost Pounds
Estelle Powers
Joe and Freda Provence
L. B. Pullen
Roy Vincent and Milner
Harris Evans and Buckley
Qualls
Grover Reasoner
Ralph and Leola Reasor
Dr. Neil Record
Harley and Wilda Redin
Dr. Harold Reese
Helen Barnhart Reese
Roberta Wright Reeves
Andy Reid Memorial
Harvey and Sharleen Formby
Rhoads
Joe C. and Jennie E.
Richardson
Carroll Robertson
Cecil and Wanda Roenfeldt
Carol Rogers
The Rushing Family
Joe W. and Mildred McFerrin
Sanders
John D. and Phyllis Sanders
Donna Sarchet
Ralph and Elizabeth Shannon
Kelton and Sally Shaw
Melvin C. Shook
Jack and Maxine Skaggs
Christa Kunkel Smith
James and Lena Evans Smith
Tom and Myra Spears
Salla Stephens Bradshaw and
John Ray Stephens
Alois Stevens
Stillwell Ministerial
Belva and Vernon Stokes
Shelly Stokes Coll and
Shauna Stokes Sanderson
John Stoneham Endowed
Student Foundation Alumni
Frances Taylor
Harold and Audrey Temple
Dr. Gerald and Marilyn
Thompson
Otis G. Thompson
Warren H. Tidwell
Trinity Methodist Church
Bobbie and Harold Trull
Jean Trull
Cecil and Kathleen Turner
W. D. “Dub” Turner E
Hal Upchurch
Valley View Baptist Church
G. W. and Mabel Vernon
Continued Page 45
footprints 29
What’s on the page
Grad uses reminders to help others
By Teresa Young
obert Moreno cherishes two particular pieces of paper. One is a
local newspaper article from
2002, detailing the death of his father. The
other is his undergraduate diploma from
Wayland Baptist University. They are both
symbolic.
“When I talk to kids, I hold up both of
them and say, ‘These are just pieces of
paper, but one represents excuses and one
represents no excuses,’” said Moreno. “I
always want to remember that.”
Today, Moreno is a 29-year-old with two
college degrees, having earned his Master of
Education degree in elementary education
on May 7 from Wayland. His whole life lies
ahead of him, and he wants nothing more
than to use the pain of his own life struggle
to fuel him into a teaching career that will
allow him to invest in the lives of the next
generation of students and encourage them
to reach for their dreams.
His professors at Wayland believed in
Moreno so much they chose him as the
WBU recipient of the EDICUT Award for preservice teachers, given to a participant in
the teacher education program who performs well and shows great potential for
leadership in the classroom. Each of the 36
schools that make up the Independent
Colleges and Universities of Texas (ICUT)
organization choose an honoree each academic year.
R
30 footprints
“Our faculty thought he really deserved
the honor,” said Dr. Jim Todd, dean of the
School of Education at Wayland. “He
showed a commitment and desire for learning and for helping students begin to dream
dreams of completing school. He showed
them that they could do more than they
ever thought they could.”
At one time, though, Moreno was on the
other side of the desk as a student whose
teachers wondered how to break through to
him and encourage him to pursue a better
life. A quiet, humble man now, Moreno was
once a troubled student who said he carried
his anger and abandonment issues into the
classroom.
It started from infancy with a father who
Moreno said was in and out of the family’s
life. At age 2, young Robert spent time in
the hospital for a depression he believes
was caused by the detachment issues and
from moving back and forth from Plainview
to Amarillo. Eventually, the family settled in
Plainview just before Robert started school.
A lack of structure helped start a downward
spiral, though.
“I started drinking alcohol in the fourth
grade and doing drugs in about the fifth
grade,” Moreno said. “I could do whatever I
pleased and no one would question me. I
was home alone a lot, or I would walk the
streets from one side of Plainview to another, visiting friends or my grandparents.”
Robert Moreno holds the diploma
from Wayland that is one of two
pieces of paper reminding him of
his future potential.
The junior high years were
rough, with Moreno’s temper and
home issues coming into the classroom. By the time he reached high
school, he really wasn’t interested
in school any more. He started at
Plainview High, then moved to
Plainview Christian Academy, then
moved in with his father in
Edinburg to attend school there. He
eventually moved to Amarillo and
attended two schools there before
coming back to Plainview. The typical pattern was to go to classes for
a few months and then essentially
drop out and stay at home. Out of
concern, an uncle reported him to
the Plainview truant officers in
order to get him back in school. He
was still under 18.
He ended up at Houston School,
where he initially planned to get his
GED and get on with life. But thenprincipal Tommy Chatham told him
of a new program that would allow
him to work at an accelerated pace
and actually earn his high school
diploma instead of the GED. Despite
his struggles, Moreno actually graduated on time.
Moreno then entered the work
force, but found himself in a rut
from which he did not see any
escape.
“I was working minimum wage
jobs in terrible conditions. I could
not afford a car or get away from
home,” he said.
His dad’s death in 2002 was a
wake-up call of sorts. The newspaper article he still carries with him
detailed the arrest of drug runners
who had stuffed his father’s casket
with 11 pounds of marijuana before
transporting his body back to
Plainview for the funeral. That news,
coupled with a memory of a conversation he’d had with his dad
years before, were enough to awaken him to reality.
“I asked my dad why he drank
all the time and he said, ‘That’s all I
ever knew.’ When the story (in the
paper) came out, I told myself then
that excuses were what got my dad
where he was. I knew I was heading
to the same place my dad was,” he
said. “It was a choice that I finally
decided to make that I didn’t want
to live his life.”
That began a turnaround that
manifests itself today in a humble,
continued on Page 44
footprints
31
Classnotes
In Loving
Memory
Christian love and sympathy is
extended to the family and
friends of these members of
the Wayland family.
Faculty/Staff/Trustees/
Donors/Friends
er of Wayland business faculty
member DR. SAM VAN
HOOSE: Died April 18, 2011,
in Crosbyton at age 81. She
had worked in several school
cafeterias. In addition to her
son, other survivors are her
husband George, three other
sons, two daughters, a sister, a
brother, 16 grandchildren and
34 great-grandchildren.
(VanHoose@wbu.edu)
1940s
JENNIE AONO BAKER,
an academic counselor at the
San Antonio campus for the
past eight years: Died July 1,
2011, in San Antonio at age
56. Surviving are her husband
Roddy, a daughter, her mother, and a sister.
WANDA FULLINGIM
SMITH, a Wayland trustee
from 1976-84: Died March
28, 2011, in Amarillo at age
85. For 25 years, she taught
freshman composition and
ran the English lab at West
Texas State University. While
there, Wanda and a colleague
collaborated on a textbook,
Write This Way, a complete
guide to college-level grammar and writing published by
McGraw-Hill. Survivors
include two sons, a stepson
and numerous grandchildren
and great-grandchildren.
Florence Van Hoose, moth-
32 footprints
EVELYN ADELL ALLEN,
AA’40: Died Dec. 2, 2010, in
Lubbock at age 91. She was
an elementary education
teacher in the Pacific
Northwest. She also taught
English as a second language
in Alaska. Evelyn was a devoted pastor’s wife and served in
many church ministries.
Survivors include five children, a sister, 10 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
MINNIE DENNIS, EX’40:
Died April 23, 2011, in
Lubbock at age 87. She was a
nurse and later owned an
automobile business with her
husband before retiring
around 1980. Surviving are
several nieces and nephews.
NORRIS W. FULFER,
EX’43: Died April 8, 2011, in
Claremont, Calif., at age 86. A
U.S. Army Air Corps veteran
of World War II, he pastored
Southern Baptist churches in
Texas, New Mexico and
California for more than 50
years. In 1951, as moderator
of the Redwood Empire
Baptist Association in
California, he cast the tiebreaking vote to receive the
first African-American
Church in the U.S.
(Community Baptist Church
in Santa Rosa) into the
Southern Baptist Convention,
for which he was honored in
1997 with the second-ever
African-American Southern
Baptist Convention Heritage
Award in Glorieta, N.M. He is
survived by his wife of 67
years, RUBY FERGUSON
FULFER, AA’44, one son,
three daughters, 10 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren. (312 W. Manor,
Claremont, CA 91711)
KENNETH CLYDE
GREEN, AA’44: Died Oct.
28, 2010, in Albuquerque,
N.M., at age 84. He and his
wife were school teachers and
college professors. Their
careers took the family from
New Mexico to Alaska to
Missouri several times. He
served as pianist, organist,
teacher and deacon at First
Baptist Church of Bosque
Farms for more than 50 years.
Surviving are his wife of 57
years, Ouita; three children,
six grandchildren, a brother,
and a sister. (P.O. Box 56,
Peralta, NM 87042)
GRACE MARIE RAY
LACY, AA’46: Died June 12,
2011, in Amarillo at age 84.
She taught school at
Paramount Terrace
Elementary School for more
than 30 years and also taught
in Dimmitt, Panhandle and
Eunice, N.M. Her husband,
Pancho, also died on June 12.
They celebrated their 60th
anniversary on June 9.
Surviving are two daughters, a
sister and eight grandchildren.
ELOISE WYNON
MAYES, EX’40: Died June
9, 2011, in Canyon. She was a
longtime Home
Demonstration (later Family
and Consumer Sciences) agent
for the Texas Extension
Service. She was a recipient of
the Superior Service Award –
Extension’s highest honor. A
former Woman of the Year in
Plainview, she once appeared
as “Minnie Pearl” on “Good
Morning America.” Survivors
include two daughters, a sister,
six grandchildren and nine
great-grandchildren.
1950s
VIRGIL ALLEN CHRON,
BA’59: Died Jan. 8, 2011, in
Anchorage, Alaska, at age 87.
A Naval Air Corps veteran, he
pastored at Cone while
attending Wayland. Realizing a
need for ministry to military
personnel and families, he
founded the Muldoon Road
Baptist Church in Anchorage
and pastored there for 23
years until he was forced to
retire due to heart problems.
He baptized more than 2,000
people there, started other
churches and had radio programs to all of Alaska as well
as Russia and Nova Scotia.
Virgil ministered to missionaries within Alaska. He was
instrumental in helping
Muldoon buy a plane and paying for flying lessons, thus
widening the church’s ministry. Surviving are his wife of
65 years, June; four daughters,
a brother, a sister, 10 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. (2020 Muldoon
Road, Unit #209, Anchorage,
AK 99504;
bandit2@alaska.com)
MARGIE E. HAWS KINSEY, EX’56: Died June 9,
2011, in Carthage, Mo., at age
75. She played for the Flying
Queens for two years. She
taught school and coached for
11 years, and she trained and
raced horses from 1959-85.
She was employed at Precious
Moments Hotel for the past
10 years. Surviving are several
nieces and nephews.
BILLY TIMMONS, EX’47:
Died April 17, 2011, in
Brownfield at age 81. He
played basketball for the first
Pioneers basketball team
coached by Harley Redin. He
farmed for many years.
Surviving are his wife Betty; a
son, two brothers and three
granddaughters. (2018
Timmons Drive, Brownfield,
TX 79316)
ANDREW JOSEPH
BURLESON, EX’50s: Died
April 13, 2011, in Gruver at
age 77. A U.S. Army veteran,
he ranched and farmed for
several years, then worked at
First State Bank in Stratford
and Amarillo and later was
vice president of Amarillo
Production Credit
Association. Survivors include
three daughters, two sisters,
four grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren.
1960s
CHARLOTTE ‘CHICKIE’
MASON, BA’68: Died May
14, 2011, in Pipe Creek at age
66. A former Queen Bee and
manager for the Flying
Queens, she was the first softball coach at the University of
Texas-San Antonio, leading
the team for seven seasons.
She coached Medina Valley to
an 88-24 record and the Class
4A softball title game in 2003.
She also coached basketball at
McLennan Community
College in Waco and Lamar
University in Beaumont and
basketball and softball at Mary
Hardin-Baylor in Belton. She
is survived by a brother.
VAUGHDEEN ALLEN
MEIER, BM’67: Died July 4,
2011, in Ruidoso, N.M., at age
70. She taught first grade and
music in Perryton,
Beeville, Jacksboro, Sudan and
Littlefield schools for a total
of 27 years before retiring.
Surviving are her husband,
Charlie; a son, a brother and a
sister.
GARY LEE PARKER,
BA’63: Died April 22, 2011,
in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at age
69. He spent 26 years as an
educator. Surviving are his
partner, David Shapiro, a sister and a nephew.
1970s
SUE A. MEYERS CALDWELL: Died June 13, 2011,
in Granbury at age 64. She
raised and raced quarter horses. Survivors include her husband, Robert “Bob” Caldwell,
two sons, a brother, 10 grandchildren and two sisters,
including BREENA CALDWELL, BS’78, a former
Flying Queen All-American
who was inducted into the
Wayland Athletic Hall of
Honor in February. (Breena:
2204 Mayfield Circle, Corinth,
TX 76208)
OPAL JOHNSON: Died
May 4, 2011, in Plainview at
age 95. She was a homemaker.
Surviving are two daughters,
BRENDA GONZALEZ,
BA’73, coordinator of
BAS/BCM records for
Wayland, and PATSY
FLANIKEN, EX’65; a son,
DONNIE JOHNSON,
EX’66; 12 grandchildren and
15 great-grandchildren. A
grandson, EFRAIN GONZALEZ, BA’00, officiated the
service. (Brenda: 1502 W.
16th, Plainview, TX 79072;
gonzalezb@wbu.edu)
PERRY WALKER, BA’76:
Died June 6, 2011, in
Plainview at age 57. A farmer
most of his life, he also was a
past youth director and song
leader at Broadway Church of
Christ in Lubbock, Sunset
Church of Christ in Lubbock
and Garland Street Church of
Christ in Plainview. Survivors
include his mother, a brother,
a sister and several nieces and
nephews. The family suggests
memorial contributions to
Wayland. (Marie Walker: 1663
W. U.S. Highway 70, Plainview,
TX 79072)
MICHAEL FRANKS,
brother of TAMARA
FRANKS, BS’88, and TIM
FRANKS, EX’80, and cousin
of LYNNE MILLER
BURNS, BS’90: Died May 4,
2011, in Hereford at age 43.
Surviving are his wife Barbara,
a son, a daughter, his parents
and another brother. (Tamara:
27 Corkwood Road, Trinity,
TX 75862;
tbmissouri@yahoo.com; Tim:
3212 Foxboro Drive,
Richardson, TX 75082-3062;
Lynne: 18761 Vista Del Sol
Drive, Dallas, TX 75287)
2000s
BEVERLY SUE PHILLIPS
LARSON, MEd’05 from the
Wichita Falls campus: Died
July 3, 2011, in Wichita Falls
at age 53. She was a retired
educator with 21 years of
service. She was an education
consultant at the Region 9
Education Service Center.
Surviving are her husband,
Jim; a daughter, two sisters,
her stepfather, two step-sisters
and two step-brothers.
JOSHUA ‘JOSH’ LEE
TIMMONS, BA’08: Died
May 2, 2001, in Idalou at age
25. A former Pioneer baseball
player and trackster, he
worked for the Lubbock
County Sheriff ’s Office in the
footprints
33
Jail Detention Division.
Surviving are his mother, a
brother and a grandmother.
JOHN DAVID TYNER,
BSOE’07 from the Hawaii
campus: Died March 31, 2011,
in Waipahu at age 49. He was
a retired Navy master chief
and an engineering technician
at Pearl Harbor Naval
Shipyard. Surviving are his
wife, Mary Langston, a son, a
daughter, his parents and two
brothers.
(tynerm001@hawaii.rr.com)
DR. ROBERT ‘BOB’
DAWSON, former member
of the Wayland religion faculty, is retiring as WMU professor of missions at Oklahoma
Baptist where he has taught
since 1985. He was instrumental in developing new academic programs in cross-cultural ministry, including the
first full program in orality
studies to be offered in any
Baptist school. Dawson is also
the co-founder of the Avery
T. Willis Center for Global
Outreach and founder of the
Don R. Kammerdiener Center
for Missiological Research.
Faculty/Staff
STEPHEN BURGER, former psychology professor in
Plainview and later executive
director of the Fairbanks
campus, and his wife Tammie
are now associated with
Commission to Every Nation
to provide emotional and spiritual support to missionaries
and their families in Central
America. Their goal is to
make sure the missionaries
and their families are healthy
physically, emotionally and
spiritually so they can continue their mission as long as
God wills them to be there.
They travel to Central
America every quarter for
about four weeks to visit their
missionaries. He holds
advanced degrees in psychology and education, and
Tammie holds advanced
degrees in music and education. (218 Oak Hill Drive,
Kerrville, TX 78028;
StephenBurger@cten.org)
34 footprints
CAROL GAMBOA, benefits
coordinator for Wayland since
2006, continues to study business administration at WBU.
She recently graduated from
the 27th class of Leadership
Plainview. Class discussions
and field trips throughout the
area offer class members a
behind-the-scenes glimpse
into the community’s inner
workings. She and her husband Isaac, an agent for the
Department of Public Safety,
have two children. (gamboac@wbu.edu)
BEVERLY HOUSTON,
Coordinator of Development
and Recruiting for the San
Antonio campus, was featured
in the June 2011 issue of
Trends magazine of Texas
style and culture about her
singing career. Houston has
been singing since childhood
and regularly performs at special events and restaurants and
has a standing show at Ruth’s
Chris steakhouse in St. Paul
Square. She sings jazz as well
as classical, blues, R&B, rock
n’ roll, country and gospel.
She has recorded three CDs
as well and is writing songs
for her next album, primarily
blues. (houstonb@wbu.edu)
Bandera after the coming
school year, and he will continue to teach at the San
Antonio campus. (1110
Borger, Plainview, TX 79072;
gmanning@wbu.edu)
DR. CANDACE KELLER,
who has taught art at Wayland
for 31 years, recently won first
place for Watercolor in the
Plains Art Association program at the Malouf Abraham
Art Gallery on the Wayland
campus. She was recipient of
the Faculty of the Year honor
from the Association of
Former Students in May.
(kellerc@wbu.edu)
LEZLIE PORTER and
SHARON GODWIN,
employees at the San Antonio
campus, participated in the
Fiesta Wildflower Bike Ride
on April 10 at the Retama
race track in Selma. The pair
rode 32 miles in two hours
and 45 minutes. The race was
100 miles total.
DR. GARY MANNING,
professor of religion and religious education, and his wife
PAULETTE MANNING,
MEd’86, are grandparents for
a second time. Carter Brooke
Keating was born July 4, 2011,
in Albuquerque, N.M., to
Carlos and Tami Keating. She
weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces
and was 20 inches long. Gary
continues to serve as interim
minister of music at First
Baptist-Plainview. He currently has 29 years of service in
Plainview. Paulette recently
retired as Assistant
Superintendent for Federal
Programs for the Plainview
ISD. They plan to move to
DR. ROBERT ‘BOB’ SARTAIN, BS’61, former math
professor at Wayland, recently
was honored with a Mentor
Award at the University of
Texas at Arlington for his
work with Larrissa Perkins.
Miss Perkins is a GAANN
Fellow at UTA and is working
on her Ph.D in mathematics.
Bob was on the GAANN Day
program and spoke on the
topic of preparing undergraduate mathematics majors for
graduate school work in mathematics. Bob and JANET
BUTLER SARTAIN, BA’62,
were back for Homecoming
when Bob made a special
presentation in Math and
Science. (111 West Drive, San
Angelo, TX 76903; janetsartain@yahoo.com)
DR. DAVID SMITH, former Director of Development
at Wayland in the mid-1990s
and former president of
Brewton-Parker College in
Mount Vernon, Ga., has
joined Dallas Baptist
University as director of the
Benefactor raises money to aid in Cox recovery
By Benjamin Hochman
The Denver Post
(This story about Ben Cox, EX’09,
appeared June 18 in the Denver Post.
More information and more pictures of Ben
may be seen at wegoblogger31.com)
en Cox remained conscious
after he fell 25 feet from the
sky and splattered onto the
side of the mountain. “How I didn’t snap
my neck and die,” he said, “I don’t know.”
Moments prior, on the slopes at
Monarch this spring, Kenneth Cox playfully motivated his son to attempt a seemingly doable ski jump. Neither anticipated
the upward lip. From about 100 feet
down the mountain, the helpless father
watched his helpless son. The crash
sounded like a gunshot.
“I remember as I was going into the
ambulance,” Cox said, “my dad was over
me, crying and saying: ‘I’m sorry, I’m so
sorry.”
The 23-year-old Cox, an avid golfer
and skier, is now paralyzed from the
chest down. He landed on his left leg,
breaking his femur in three separate
places. Then, his head slammed into the
ground between his legs, shattering his
vertebrae. The Haxtun native is currently
at Denver’s Craig Hospital, where he’s in
a wheelchair. Doctors give him a 3 percent chance of ever walking again.
Since the accident March 17, there
has been an onslaught of support – family, friends, neighbors – but the most
unlikely support has come from a
stranger.
See, Cox spent three previous summers as a caddie at Ballyneal, the prestigious golf club in northeast Colorado.
And while member Jim Colton had never
met Cox, when Colton heard about the
accident, he felt he should help.
Ballyneal, Colton explained, “is almost
like a second family.” So, on June 20,
Colton sponsored an event to raise
money for the Cox family, which is
remodeling its home for wheelchair
accessibility.
B
Ben Cox, paralyzed in a skiing accident, uses a specially manufactured golf cart to get back on the course.
Jim Colton, a member of Ballyneal Golf Club, used golf to raise money for Cox’s family. (Photo Courtesy
Brenda Brandt/Holyoke, Colo. Enterprise
On June 20, officially the longest day
of the year, the voracious golfer attempted to play 108 holes of golf at Ballyneal,
while accepting pledges for his quest.
“I’m just grateful and surprised –why
me?” said Cox, with tears falling from his
eyes. “For once, it seemed that God
allowed something good to happen to
me.”
The link with the links began with just
a driver, a 5-iron and a putter, which
Oscar Cox bought used at a Salvation
Army. If he didn’t start playing golf at age
57, he decided, when would he? So Cox
and his 10-year-old son, Kenneth, taught
each other the game with their three
clubs, swing by swing, slice by slice.
A love for golf became a family heirloom.
Kenneth taught his own son the game
when Ben was six. Sometimes, three generations of Cox men would golf together,
such as on Oscar’s 90th birthday, when
Grandpa got genuinely mad he couldn’t
hit the ball as far as he once could.
Ben remembers Oscar lofting a nice
approach shot, “And Grandpa would say,
‘Go up on the green and putt that in for
me.” I’d miss the putt and he would say,
‘I could’ve made that!’”
Jim Colton is a banker, but one could
argue that that’s his hobby. Golf defines
him. He is, basically, a nut about the
game. Colton self-published a golf book
and writes a golf blog (www.wegoblogger31.com), which features the header:
“Changing the earth one divot at a time.”
He lives in the Chicago area but is a
proud member of Ballyneal, roughly 850
miles away in Colorado.
“There’s a shared linkage,” the 37year-old Colton said of Ballyneal. “It’s the
people – everyone from the staff to the
caddies to the other members. Everyone
is passionate about the game. It brings
everyone together. So, even though I had
never met Ben, it was just merging my
passion of golf and Ballyneal and willing
to help out a family member.”
Really, the strangers aren’t strangers –
both golf-loving, God-fearing guys who
cherish family and faith.
“This is a lifelong relationship,” Colton
said, “that has just started.”
Colton visited Cox at the hospital in
April and the two talk on the phone
weekly. Cox is one of those people you
just want to be around. Colton can feel it.
continued on Page 42
footprints
35
Gifts that
Keep on Giving
Want to really make an impact for a
special occasion or to remember a lost
loved one? Consider memorials and
honorariums to Wayland!
Master of Arts in Christian
Ministries degree and also
professor of Christian
Ministries and Leadership in
the Gary Cook Graduate
School of Leadership.
DR. J. PAUL SORRELS,
former psychology professor
at Wayland in the early 1980s,
has been named associate
provost and dean at Rio
Grande College in Alpine.
Sorrels spent the past 10 years
as provost and vice president
for Academic Affairs at East
Texas Baptist University in
Marshall. From 1985-94 he
served as director of graduate
programs in family ministry
and family psychology at
Hardin-Simmons and from
1993-98 was dean of
Graduate Studies and Special
Programs there. Prior to moving to East Texas Baptist,
Sorrels was Vice President of
Academic Affairs and faculty
dean at Bluefield (Va.)
College. He has taught at all
of those institutions, as well
as at Dallas Baptist College
and Mountain View College.
1920s
Wayland recently received a
donation to the Steinway
36 footprints
piano project from Mr. and
Mrs. Robert Exum of
Calabasas, Calif., in memory
of his father, FRANK
EXUM, uncle, JIM EXUM,
and aunt, SALLIE LEE
EXUM, who hailed from
Shamrock and all attended
Wayland in the early 1920s.
Frank was a baseball player
for the Jackrabbits. Robert
related that his father said he
could “count on peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches for dinner every Sunday night
because by then the college
would have used up all the
funds for food for the week.”
1940s
REV. RONALD WAYNE
WILLCOXON, BA’49, and
his wife, Donna, celebrated
their 65th anniversary on May
25, 2011, and he marked 86
years on June 29. They mar-
ried in Marshfield, Mo., after
he was discharged from the
Navy. He was vice president
of the first class to graduate
from Wayland as a senior college. He was a police officer
and chaplain at San Quentin
prison while attending Golden
Gate Seminary and pastored
for 25 years in California
(where he helped build
churches as well) and Texas.
Donna was his administrative
assistant and they served as
missionaries for the Home
Mission Board for 25 years.
They have two children, seven
grandchildren and 17 greatgrandchildren with another on
the way. (7305 Rosewood
Court NW, Albuquerque, NM
87120)
1950s
JOYCE KITE, BS’59, is
retired from teaching and
continues to live in Hawaii.
Joyce, a former Flying Queen,
Queen Bees coach and
teacher at Plainview High
School, writes: “I enjoy
singing and playing ukulele in
our church choir and with a
group that performs monthly
at a retirement complex. I also
enjoy snorkeling, hiking and
line dancing. This past March,
our side of the island received
considerable damage by the
tsunami, which was the result
of the terrible earthquake in
Japan. Fortunately, the complex where I live received
none. There was no loss of
life.” (75-6082 Alii Drive, Apt.
302, Kailua-Kona Hawaii
96740;
toytruck37@gmail.com)
1960s
ALVIN ‘AL’ GARY, BA’66,
and JUDY BERGSTROM
GARY, EX’67, who completed a 37-year career with the
International Mission Board
as missionaries to Guadeloupe
in 2009, are enjoying “retirement” as pastor and wife of
the International Christian
Fellowship of Lubbock. They
write: “We are a small church
consisting of internationals
and people who love internationals. Most of the internationals who attend our worship located at the BSM near
Tech are graduate students
(most in the doctoral program) who are unbelievers yet
seekers. In the last year and a
half, 93 different internationals representing 28 countries
have attended our worship
and/or programs.” Al has
ministered twice in Haiti after
the earthquake, and in April
they made their first trip to
Guadeloupe since leaving in
November 2008. (7700
Memphis Drive, Lubbock, TX
79423; al.judy@pobox.com)
DR. DAVID O. HILL,
BM’65, discontinued his private clinical psychology practice in 1999 after 25 years. He
was recognized for 25 years as
a consultant to the Overland
Park, Kan., Police
Department from which he
retired in 2010. He continues
as one of two nationwide
grassroots advocacy coordinators for the American
Psychological Association, a
position he has held since
1995. He also consults with
Social Security Disability in
the Kansas City, Mo., area.
Wife JUANAN PERRY
HILL, BA’65, retired in 2008
from Metropolitan
Community College-Penn
Valley, where she enjoyed 15
years teaching ESL to students from all over the world.
They have two daughters and
a grandson. Her sister, CARRIE SUE PERRY CAMPBELL, BA’68, also lives in the
Kansas City area. (7637
Canterbury Drive, Prairie
Village, KS 66208;
dhill0324@aol.com)
JAMES MITCHELL,
BA’68, recently retired from
45 years in the preaching ministry – the past 22 at
Immanuel Baptist Church in
San Angelo. A graduate of
Midwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary in
Kansas City, he also pastored
in Missouri and New Mexico.
He and his wife, PHILLIS
HALL MITCHELL ’67,
owner of Phillis Mitchell
Computer Tutor, have two
children and six granddaughters. (3118 Alta Vista, San
Angelo, TX 76904;
phillis@suddenlink.net)
CINDY SHELTON
RAUGHTON, EX’61, was
inducted recently into the Big
Country Hall of Fame in
Abilene. A former Flying
Queen from 1959-61, she was
a standout at tiny Avoca. The
Queens won the AAU national championship in 1960 and
she was on an all-star team
that played in Russia. She is
the second former Queen to
be selected to the hall, joining
ROSE MARY JONES
DELANE, BS’63, of Trent. A
retired junior high language
arts teacher, Cindy and her
husband, Rudy, have three
children and several grandchildren. (P.O. Box 781, Roscoe,
TX 79545.)
CHARLOTTE LINDA
LEWIS WHITE, EX’68,
recently retired after teaching
art in the Kern High School
District in California. Linda,
who continues to paint professionally, also has degrees
from Wyoming and California
State-Bakersfield. Her husband is deceased. She has a
daughter and a granddaughter
and would love to hear from
classmates. (4013 Noel Place,
Bakersfield, CA 93306;
Charlotte_White@khsd.k12.ca
.us)
1970s
REV. BENNY GRESHAM,
BA’70, is retired after serving
several years in the Air Force
and pastoring churches in the
U.S. and Asia. His last pastorate was the Christian
International Church in
Taejeon, South Korea. Wife
SHARON HUDSON GRESHAM, BA’70, is founder and
director of Ashes to Crowns
Ministries. She writes Bible
studies, speaks to women’s
groups and sings. Sharon
graduated with a Masters of
Arts in Theology from
Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary in 2008
with a double emphasis in
Systematic Theology and
Biblical Studies. She now pursues a Ph.D. in New
Testament with a major in
Biblical Theology from B. H.
Carroll Theological Institute.
They have two children and
six grandchildren. (P.O. Box 7,
Burleson, TX 76097;
benny.gresham@sbcglobal.net
; greshamsh@hotmail.com)
BARBARA COX, BS’75, is
Girls Athletic Director, Head
Girls Track Coach and Dean
of Students at Coleman High
School, where she has served
the past 30 years. She previously taught in Plains for two
years and in Idalou for four.
(404 Santa Anna Ave.,
Coleman, TX 76834;
bcox@web-access.net)
KAREN WHITE DONOHO, BA’75, began working at
Cisco College in 2007 after
being a homemaker and
homeschool mom for 17
years. She currently is the
Student Success Specialist.
She became a grandmother on
Feb. 4, 2010, to Kelly Lucinda
Donoho (son Chad’s daughter). Her husband of 27 ½
years, Odis R. Donoho,
passed away on Jan. 19, 2011,
after a lengthy illness. (400 E.
7th Street, Cisco, TX 764237;
ksdonoho@rocketmail.com)
RICHARD DYE, BS’78,
retired recently after 22 years
at Glen Rose High School,
where he taught and also
coached basketball and softball. He and his wife Sarah
have three children. (P.O.
1836, Glen Rose, TX 76043;
richdye@yahoo.com)
ANN EVANS, EX’75, is a
teacher in Alexandria, Va. Her
first husband, Krist LaGrone,
died in a plane crash in
Plainview a few weeks after
his graduation in 1975. He
was pastor of Second Baptist
Church at 10th and Utica. She
has three children and four
grandchildren. Her husband
of 35 years, Chuck Evans, is
retired from the Navy and
works for the U.S.
Government.
(ann.evans@crcs.org)
NANCY RINEHART
RAWLINS, BS’70, retired in
June after 41 years with the
Bay City ISD as a high school
math teacher. She is finishing
Office of Church Services
The Office of Church Services
has moved from the Flores Bible
Building to the Trinity Building to make
room for new religion faculty. Contact
Micheal Summers at 291-3407 or campus
mail box 552
1900 W. 7th, Plainview TX, 79072
footprints
37
Provence recognized by the Arts
hen it comes to stars,
Scholarship Pageant. As a certified
none shines brighter in
pageant judge, Provence has judged
the arts community
in six states.
W
than Joe Provence, who was selected
He was active in both the
in May to receive the 2011 Silver
Wayland Baptist Theatre and
Star Award given by the Plainview
Plainview Civic Theatre, acting, direct-
Cultural Arts Council.
ing and serving as PCT president as
Previous Silver Star recipients
well as costume director.
have included several with Wayland
ties including music instructors Earl
Miller, Jeannine Greene and Mark
Pair and art instructor Dr. Candace
Keller.
Provence, who is retired, holds
As a member of the original
In retirement, Joe Provence spends time
painting in his studio. Joe and Freda will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in
August.
After 18 months away from West
steering committee of the Friends of
Music at Wayland, Provence has
served as president since 2008 and
has been instrumental in raising
more than $20,000 in scholarships.
the title of WBU emeritus director of
Texas, Provence returned to the uni-
He has helped spearhead the drive to
alumni services after serving as
versity to assume the newly-created
purchase a new Steinway piano.
director of alumni services at
position of director of recruitment
He also was president of the Fair
Wayland for 21 years. He was associ-
and promotion. He later served as
Theatre Restoration Project, is secre-
ated with Wayland for more than 50
director of public relations, director of
tary of the Plains Art Association and
years in various capacities.
student activities and cheerleader
was vice president of the Plainview
sponsor before taking over as direc-
Cultural Arts Council. He and his wife
Wayland in 1957 as a student after
tor of alumni services in 1985, a
are members of First Baptist Church
graduating from Arlington High
position he held until his retirement
and the Pastor’s Class.
School. Two years later, he left
in June 2006 .
He first came to Plainview and
Wayland due to the serious illness of
Joe and Freda will celebrate their
During those years, Provence
50th wedding anniversary on Aug.
his brother, Sammy, then returned
founded the Miss Wayland Pageant
18. No official celebration is planned
seven years later to work as news
in 1971 as a preliminary to the Miss
but both say they’d be happy for
director and complete his degree.
Texas and Miss America pageants.
contributions in their honor be
During the next 18 years, the Miss
directed to the Steinway Grand Piano
classmate, Freda Taylor of Paducah
Wayland Pageant three times was
Project, c/o Linda Grover, School of
and worked as youth director at First
recognized as the best of 72 pag-
Music, Wayland Baptist University,
Baptist Church in Clovis, N.M.
eants in the state by the Miss Texas
Plainview, TX 79072.
In the meantime, he married his
her presidency of the local
Delta Kappa Gamma chapter.
She and her husband Charles,
a retired oilfield gauger and
part-time postal deliverer, have
one son. (2716 Del Monte,
Bay City, TX 77414; nancyrawlins40@yahoo.com)
38 footprints
MARVIN L. REECE,
BA’76, served as mission
starter and pastor for several
years in the Pacific Northwest
and later served as pastor in
Oklahoma. After graduation
from Southwestern Seminary,
he was a pastor and mission
starter for over six years, then
became chaplain for the Idaho
State Veterans Home. In the
last few years, he has been
writing and has published a
book which chronicles his religious journey in much more
specific terms. The book,
“Congregational Chaos,”
www.congregationalchaos.com
was published in the eBook
format and will be in print
this spring. “I will always be
indebted to Wayland for its
contribution to my life and
journey,” said Marvin, who
has three children and three
grandchildren.
(marvreece2@yahoo.com)
Bridgeboro, GA 31705;
ruben_edwards@msn.com)
DR. MICHAEL DAVIS, BA’87 with honors, recently received a quality
assurance award from National Security Technologies, LLC, in Las Vegas,
Nev., where he manages nuclear training policy and compliance in the nuclear
operations directorate. Davis received the Distinguished Benefactor Award at
Homecoming 2011. Recipient of the Distinguished Young Alumni Award in
1997, he has been the lead donor in three scholarships at Wayland and is
spearheading a fourth. (4754 Priory Gardens, Las Vegas, NV 89193; mikedavis4@cox.net)
1980s
DR. MAXIE MILLER JR.,
BSOE’86, who leads the
African American Ministries
Division of the Florida
Baptist Convention, recently
was featured in the Florida
Baptist Witness newspaper. His
friend, Denise McNair, was
one of four children killed in
the bombing of the Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham, Ala., in 1963,
and he later was the victim of
a shooting. (1903 E
Timberlane Drive, Plant City,
FL 33563)
JOLI TEMPLE STORM,
EX’88, lives with her husband
and four children, ages 3-13,
in Colorado. She taught at the
Lubbock campus in the early
1990s. (jolistorm@gmail.com)
JOHN BLEVINS, BS’99,
MA’03, has completed residency at Scott and White
Memorial Hospital in Temple
and recently started a new job
as a hospital physician at
Midland Memorial Hospital.
He received his M.D. from the
University of Texas Medical
School. He and his wife, Lisa,
have two children – Luke, 19
months, and Elizabeth Marie,
4 months. He would love to
hear from classmates. (11
Quail Run, Midland, TX
79707;
jabbavert@hotmail.com)
JAMES CONLON, AAS’90
from the Anchorage campus,
is president and CEO of
Bangor Savings Bank in
Portland, Maine – the state’s
largest – and was recently featured in the Portland, Maine,
Press newspaper. The U.S.
Army veteran has been with
the bank for 15 years and says
he is passionate about mental
health issues and volunteering.
He and his wife Karen have
two children and three grandchildren. (Jim.Conlon@bangor.com; 62 Sylvan Drive,
Brewer, ME 04412)
REV. JAMES EDWARDS,
BSOE’95 from the Amarillo
campus, recently was guest
speaker for the annual ushers
recognition at Live Oak
Missionary Baptist Church in
Moultrie, Ga. He served in
the Marines from 1969-2000,
earning many honors. He has
been a pastor in South
Carolina, Hawaii and Georgia.
He also was pastor of New
Jerusalem Missionary Baptist
Church at Finney, north of
Plainview, while attending
Wayland. He has been pastor
of New Salem Missionary
Baptist Church in Baconton
since 1996. He and his wife
Ethel Louise have five children and 12 grandchildren.
(9598 Vines Road,
LORETTE GOODWIN,
BA’91, is a private certified
Christian Restorative
Therapist and will be attending WBU in San Antonio. She
was a three-time All-American
in track and field. She has two
daughters, Kerisha Rejohn
Washington, 18, and Justice
Regail Washington, 16, who
were named for two of her
great Wayland friends and former Flying Queens, REJOHN
and REGAIL SEAY. They
both have received character
and leadership awards. She
and her daughters do children’s ministry at their church
and help feed the homeless.
She also occasionally sings
with evangelist Benny Hinn’s
choir. (P.O. Box 1382
Converse, Texas 78109; lorettewash2007@yahoo.com)
AARON GROFF, BS’99,
MCM’09 from the Amarillo
campus, is serving as Young
Adult Pastor at Paramount
Baptist Church in Amarillo,
where he previously was
Student Pastor for seven
years. He and his wife,
Melanie, who works for
ConocoPhillips in Amarillo,
have two children, Kealy, 8,
and Ashley, 4. (6009 Norwich,
Amarillo, TX 79109;
aaron@paramount.org)
FRANKLIN HUNSUCKER, AAS’94, MAM’09 from
the Anchorage campus,
remarried his high school
sweetheart of 30 years,
Glenda Robinson, in
September 2009. Frank, who
is retired military, and Glenda,
footprints
39
office manager for the
Oklahoma State University
Resource Center, have two
grown sons and a granddaughter. (600 Mockingbird
Lane, Idabel, OK 75745);
akoakie@yahoo.com)
DR. JUD HICKS, MBA’92,
is new president of Frank
Phillips College, a two-year
school in Borger where he has
served as vice president of
administrative services since
2002. His father, Dr. Andy
Hicks, was president of the
college from 1981-88. He and
his wife Michelle have five
children and several grandchildren. (50 Marcy Drive,
Borger, TX 79007)
2000s
LEE BEREND, BBA’08,
former Pioneer basketball
player, is a credit analyst for
First National Bank in
Graham. (122 Chaparral
Drive, Graham, TX 76450;
lberend@fnbgraham.com)
ADAM BERRY, BSOE’09
from the Lubbock campus,
married Leslie Michele Ridley
on June 4, 2011, at First
Baptist Church in Olton with
the REV. KYLE STREUN,
BA’91, pastor of First Baptist
Church in Hereford, officiating. The bride is the daughter
of David and MELANIE
WITTEN RIDLEY, BA’83,
and granddaughter of DORIS
NICHOLS WITTEN, EX’56,
all of Olton. Adam is a paramedic for Idalou EMS, and
Leslie is employed by
40 footprints
doanen@hotmail.com;
Facebook: warrenandnicole
doaneburnett)
University Medical Center.
(Adam: 300 W. Second, Apt.
2, Idalou, TX 79329; Melanie:
P.O. Box 431, Olton, TX
79064; Doris: 3090 U.S.
Highway, Olton, TX 79064;
Kyle: 143 Oak, Hereford, TX
79045; kstreun@yahoo.com)
teaching/coaching in Killeen,
and Pierre works for AT&T.
(118 Dalgoner Lane, Temple,
TX 76502;
Amy.Frei@killeenisd.org)
RANDY BLODGETT,
BBA’07, and KRIS ANN
JENNINGS BLODGETT,
BSIS’07, welcomed their first
child, Carson Dean Blodgett,
on Oct. 18, 2010, weighing 7
pounds, 11 ounces and 21
inches long. Randy is
Operations Manager for
Valentines Building Services
and Kris Ann is a sixth-grade
math teacher at O.L. Slaton
Middle School in Lubbock.
(5717 106th Street, Lubbock,
TX 79424;
randy.blodgett@hotmail;
krisann.blodgett@yahoo.com)
PIERRE BROWN, BS’04,
and AMY FREI-BROWN,
BS’04, welcomed their first
child, Kaden Antonio Brown,
on Feb. 26, 2011, weighing 8.9
pounds and 21.5 inches long.
Amy played for the Flying
Queens, and Pierre for the
Pioneers. She will be starting
her eighth year of
RAE ODOM BROCKMAN, BA’05, and husband
Cody welcomed their first
child, a son named Cy Adam,
on April 21, 2011, at 8:39 p.m.
He weighed 7 pounds, 8
ounces and was 19 inches
long. The family lives in
Lubbock.
NICOLE DOANE BURNETT, BBA’01, and her husband Warren live in Lockhart,
where she is director of
Golden Age Home Assisted
Living and he owns and operates Burnett Masonry
Construction. Nicole is a
Kiwanian and organizes the
local club’s biggest fundraiser
in the spring, the 5K
Stampede. They have a 3-yearold daughter, Abigail. (1305
Woodlawn Street, Lockhart,
TX 78644;
AARON BYRD, BA’04, is
general manager of the
Cotton Patch Café in
Plainview. He has more than
15 years of experience in the
food service industry. He has
run long distance to benefit
fallen soldiers and biked long
distance for Boy Scouts. He is
a recent graduate of the 27th
class of Leadership Plainview.
Class discussions and field
trips throughout the area offer
class members a behind-thescenes glimpse into the community’s inner workings.
DAVID COATNEY,
BSOE’03, MAM’07, is the
new fire chief in Round Rock,
Texas, near Austin. He was
serving as an assistant fire
chief in San Antonio and
started his new position on
May 1, 2011. Coatney spent
25 years with the San Antonio
department in a variety of
positions and was interim
Emergency Management
Coordinator for the city for
almost a year. He is enrolled
in the Executive Fire Officer
Program at the National Fire
Academy.
ZACH CROOK, BA’06, and
wife, JILL WYMAN
CROOK, BA’06, MA’09,
welcomed their first child,
Isaiah David, on Dec. 17,
2010. He weighed 7 pounds, 5
ounces and measured 19 3/4
inches long. Zach is Student
Pastor at Castle Hills First
Baptist Church in San
Antonio, and Jill is a Licensed
Professional Counselor, working at Laurel Ridge Treatment
Center.
(jill_crook@yahoo.com)
MAJ. DANIEL P. CURTIN
JR., BSOE’03 from the
Hawaii campus, recently
retired at Fort Leavenworth,
Kan., where he was engineer
team chief, 2-383rd Training
Support Battalion. He enlisted
in the Navy in 1985, then
enlisted in the Army in 1995.
He completed three overseas
tours in Hawaii, was deployed
to Iraq in support of
Operation Iraqi Freedom and
has received numerous medals
and commendations, including
the Bronze Star. Daniel and
his wife, Melodye, have three
children. (3428 Tudor Drive,
Leavenworth, KS 66048;
dpcon3@juno.com)
JACK DE FORREST III,
BSOE’07 from the San
Antonio campus, is
Transportation Supervisor for
the North East ISD
Transportation Department,
where he oversees the work of
a staff of 114 who together
move nearly 10,000 of the
district’s 67,000 students to
and from school each day.
Jack writes: “Though the Air
Force taught me the hands-on
experience of personnel and
resource management,
Wayland Baptist University
provided the educational
opportunity to earn the credential that has allowed me to
put those skills to work in the
civilian sector where education is the keystone to opportunity.” His wife, DIANE DE
FORREST, MEd’09, is a literacy specialist for the North
East ISD. They have two children. (8106 Rosespur Park,
Selma, TX 78154;
jdefor@neisd.net)
Air Force Master Sgt. JULIET C. GUDGEL, BS’02
from the San Antonio campus, has been decorated with
the Bronze Star Medal. The
medal is awarded to an individual who, while serving in
the U.S. Armed Forces, has
performed a heroic act, meritorious acts or achievements,
or distinguished service not
involving participation in aerial flight, in connection with
military operations against an
armed enemy of the United
States; or while engaged in
military operations involving
conflict with an opposing
armed force in which the
United States is not a belligerent party. She is an operations
and compliance superintendent assigned to Eielson Air
Force Base in Fairbanks,
Alaska, and has served in the
military for 18 years. (365
Kodiak Street, Eielson AFB,
AK 99702)
TY HARRELSON, BA’04,
a former Pioneer basketball
player, continues to have success at the professional level.
The 2003 NAIA first team
All-American was named the
Australia’s State Basketball
League PowerPlayer of the
Week after posting a tripledouble (23 points, 11 assists,
10 steals) for the Cockburn
Cougars. After spending a
number of years playing professionally in Europe,
Harrelson moved to Australia
this year. He also is
Operations Manager for the
Cougars club. Ty is tied for
28th on the WBU all-time
scoring list with 1,111 career
points.
(tyswoosh@hotmail.com)
JEREMY HARRIS, BA’04,
and his wife, KATHY
REED HARRIS, BA’04, live
in Liberal, Kan., where he is
the Associate Pastor of
Worship and Community for
First Southern Baptist
Church. Kathy enjoys staying
home with their two children,
Adelaide Joy, 3, and Eli James,
15 months. (1610 N Cain Ave,
Liberal, KS 67901;
eagles_wings82@yahoo.com)
KASSANDRA HUGHES
LANE, BS’10, and husband
Nicholas welcomed their first
child, a son named Kaiden
Lee, on April 7, 2011, weighing 6 pounds, 14 ounces. He
was 20 inches long. Proud
grandparents are Sandi and
Randy Hughes of Plainview
and David and Debbie Lane,
who is administrative assistant
in the School of Business at
Wayland. Nicholas farms with
his father and grandfather and
ranches in the area. Kassie is a
sales representative for
Scentsy and also has her own
Web-based business called
LNK reflections. (654 FM
1424, Plainview, TX 79072;
lnkwesternwear@gmail.com)
CHRIS LOGAN, BA’01,
and RENEE SLIMPIN
LOGAN, BSIS’01,
announce the birth of their
third child, a son named
Caden Malachi, born July 2,
2011, weighing 7 pounds, 8
ounces and measuring 19.25
inches long. Caden has two
big brothers, Caleb, 7, and
Curtis, 4. (818 West Park Ave.,
Weatherford, TX 76086)
SEAN W. McVEY, BS’05,
and wife SARAH KRON
McVEY, BA’07, welcomed
their first child, Abigail
Cathleen, on Dec. 22, 2010.
She weighed 9 pounds, 12
ounces and was 21 inches
long. Sean and Sarah married
in 2009 after meeting at
Wayland in 2004. Sean says
the baby “was born with HIE
(Hypoxic-Ischemic
footprints
41
from Page 35
Few people in this world
would have the right to be
more negative than Cox –
strapped into a wheelchair,
dreams shattered like his
vertebrae – yet Cox exudes
positivity. Oozes it.
He wheels his way
down the halls of Craig,
inspiring the most
depressed patients with his
humility and humor. He
cracks jokes and jabs,
almost as if he’s jabbing at
the pain. He smiled as he
explained to a visitor that
he’ll now have “rock-star
status” in regards to parking, long lines and seats at
shows.
Cox looks at obstacles
as challenges – he recently
taught himself a strategic
way to hold a fork, since
he can’t squeeze all of his
fingers. He hopes – no, he
plans on returning to Texas
Tech in January to get his
final 30 credit hours in
order to earn his degree in
civil engineering.
“I can’t begin to
describe how much of an
inspiration Ben and his
family have been to me,”
Colton said. “I’m a
Encephalopathy) and doctors
didn’t have much hope in the
beginning. She stayed in the
hospital for two weeks and
spent the first three days of
her life under cooling therapy.
After numerous tests, medicines and scares, with God’s
blessings through prayer and
faith (as well as Early
Intervention Therapy once
she was released), she is a nor-
42 footprints
changed person.”
Kenneth Cox is haunted
by the memory of his
son’s accident.
“I can see him in the
air and I can see him on
the ground, but I still can’t
see him hit,” the father
said, his voice trembling
over the words as his emotions poured out when
asked about that moment.
“I blocked it out in my
mind. I can’t see him hitting. But maybe that’s
good? It’s months later
and I still can’t talk about
it very well.”
But he remembers the
sound – SLAP! And the
skier near Ben who
screamed, “Get the Ski
Patrol. Now!” And his son
saying, “I’m starting to
freak out. I can’t feel my
legs.” And he remembers
those 20 minutes it took to
get Ben stabilized, when
he stood frozen, arms on
his ski poles, head bowed,
powerless to do anything,
praying it wasn’t as bad as
it looked.
The Cox family is
fueled by faith – faith in
Ben, faith in the man
mal, beautiful little girl.” Sean
is a Petty Officer-Second
Class in the nuclear program
at the U.S. Naval Weapons
Station in Charleston. He will
soon go to the fleet as an
Engineering Laboratory
Technician. (19 Marshall
Street, Goose Creek, SC
29445;
pawn_3@hotmail.com)
upstairs. Kenneth and his
wife, Melinda, carry the
words of Romans 8:28 in
their hearts: “We know that
in all things God works for
the good of those who love
him.”
Kenneth and Melinda
believe there’s a reason
that, for instance, when
Ben was flown to St.
Anthony’s in Denver, they
arrived within minutes
before the surgery began,
just in time to see their
son before the operation.
And they just know
there’s a reason that the
day of the accident was
the very day their daughter, 21-year-old Kayleen,
returned home from a long
trip to Germany.
At the hospital,
Kenneth explained to a visitor, “They’ve told him he
only has a 3 percent
chance of walking again.”
“I don’t believe that,
though,” the confident
Melinda said.
“Three,” Ben chimed in,
“is better than zero.”
Yes, Ben admitted that
“the more days I’m in a
chair, it’s harder to believe
ANTHONY W. PENNINGTON, BBA’00 from
the Hawaii campus, is a
human resources supervisor
for Personnel Support
Detachment in Jacksonville,
Fla. He retired from the Navy
in 2008 after 20 years of service. He and his wife, Norisa,
have four children. 2723 Elan
Court, Orange Park, FL
32065; awpenn357@hotmail;
I will walk.” But, when
Ben’s surgeries were completed that fateful March
day, the doctor explained
to the family that electrical
tests revealed minor continuity between Ben’s brain
and feet.
“So, there is a ray of
hope,” Kenneth said, “that
his brain can find a new
pathway and tell his muscles to work.”
And, Ben Cox is going
golfing.
“I would say that Ben
has been borderline
obsessed with getting back
on the golf course, in a
good way,” Colton said.
“Playing golf with Ben, I
don’t even know how I’m
going to react.”
Ben recently purchased
his dad a new putter as a
gift. But Kenneth said the
putter is both of theirs, a
shared symbol of motivation for Ben to get back
onto the golf course.
(Ben played two holes
on Father’s Day and the
tournament and other
fundraising events netted
about $110,000.)
anthony.pennington@navy.mil
KACI RISSER, BA’04, participated last fall in the Athens
Classic Marathon in Athens,
Greece. The event inspired
the modern marathon. The
ACM course, which includes
some steep hills, ends in the
Panathinaiko Stadium, the finishing point for both the 1896
and 2004 Olympic marathons.
Kaci lives in Columbia, S.C.,
and is an agent for United and
Continental Airlines. She is
the daughter of Wayland graduates ELAINE DIXON
RISSER, BA’73, and FRED
RISSER, BA’74, of Matador.
(Kaci:
kacimrisser@gmail.com;
Elaine and Fred:
ferisser@yahoo.com)
STEPHANIE SHAW,
BS’05, has been named head
women’s basketball coach at
Northwestern Oklahoma State
University, the sixth coach in
the 40-year history of the program. The former Plainview
High and Flying Queen standout previously was an assistant
at Wayland and Oklahoma
City. A three-time All-SAC
choice, she earned second
team All-American honors as
a junior in 2004 and ranks in
the top 40 of all-time Queen
scorers with 1,002 points. She
was team MVP her last two
years and was named to the
All-Decade Team.
ASHLEY WOOD SINCLAIR, EX’03, and husband
Danny welcomed their second
child, a daughter named
Audrey Kate, on May 24,
2011, at 12:17 p.m. She
weighed 7 pounds, 6 ounces.
Audrey has a big sister, Grace.
Ashley has owned Ribbons &
Bows Intimates, an apparel
shop in Lubbock, since 2004.
(ribbonsandbows23@yahoo.c
om)
MIKE SMITH, BA’03, and
wife EMILY HOGUE
SMITH, BS’03, welcomed
their second child, a son
named Jonathan Thomas, on
April 10, 2011 at 6:10 a.m. He
weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces
and was 19.75 inches long.
Jonathan has a big sister, Bella
Grace, almost 3. Mike earned
his master’s degree from
Baylor in May and the family
is planning a move to North
Carolina later this summer for
graduate school. They currently live in Temple.
MARCI STREET, BSIS’06,
lives in Friona, where she
teaches third grade at Friona
Elementary. She recently started work on a master’s degree
in special education. She
enjoys time with her niece,
Autumn, 3, the daughter of
JAMIE STREET, EX’01.
Autumn is also the niece of
Marci and Jamie’s brother
BRIAN STREET, BA’02, and
enjoys rooting for Wayland in
her cheerleader outfit. (1204
West 9th, Apt. A, Friona, TX
79035;
golfgirlsone@hotmail.com)
NANCY STUKEY, BBA’06,
is a bank officer at Happy
State Bank. Previously she was
manager of Gabriel’s
Department Store where she
worked for almost 30 years.
She is a recent graduate of the
27th class of Leadership
Plainview. Class discussions
and field trips throughout the
area offer class members a
behind-the-scenes glimpse
into the community’s inner
workings. (500 Mesa Drive,
Plainview, TX 79072)
MATT THACKERSON,
BSOE’05, MCM’09, youth
pastor at First Baptist Church
in Idalou, was the speaker for
the daily chapel time at The
Walk, a camp for youth from
eighth grade to recent graduates at the Southwest Christian
Center near Silver City, N.M.
He previously served as youth
pastor at First Baptist Church
of West Albuquerque. He and
his wife Mandy have one son.
CHRIS THOMPSON,
BA’05, and wife LUCY
RUNNER THOMPSON,
BA’05, welcomed their fourth
child, Joshua Ethan, on June
13, weighing in at 6 pounds,
15 ounces. He was 19.5 inches
long. Joshua has a big brother,
Drew, and two sisters,
Kaelynn and Rylee. Chris is
pastor of Woolsey Baptist
Church in Point, Texas, near
his hometown of Emory, and
is in car sales at Brian Toliver
Ford. (149 Santa Fe St.,
Emory, TX 75440)
JOHN TRISCHITTI III,
BA’00, recently was named
the new Midland County
Public Library director. He
has been assistant director at
the Hulsey Public Library in
Terrell. He spent some time in
retail and even did a stint as a
cowboy in Wyoming. John and
his wife, DIANA LEE
LEMONS TRISCHITTI,
BS’02, have four children –
Jay, 9; Olivia, 6; Dean, 2; and
Charlotte, 6 months.
(TrischittiIII@att.net)
JOY MILLER URLAUB,
BA’07, and husband BRANDON, BA’08, welcomed their
first child, a son named
Barrett Daniel, on April 15,
2011, at 4:05 p.m. He weighed
7 pounds, 11 ounces and was
21 inches long. Brandon is
working on a graduate degree
at Baylor’s Truett Seminary
and is a youth associate at
Columbus Avenue Baptist
Church in Waco. Joy is associate minister of recreation and
missions at the church.
(joy.urlaub@cabcwaco.org)
MICHAEL VAN
BUSKIRK, BA’07, and his
wife Heather are working with
AIDS Hope, a ministry of
Operation Mobilization and
live in the township of
Mamelodi (north of Pretoria,
South Africa). The AIDS
Hope link is
http://www.omsa.org.za/getinvolved/aids-hope.html. The
last two blog posts about
Empowering Women and A
footprints
43
from Page 31
soft-spoken young man who persevered through a bachelor’s degree
at Wayland, enrolling in 2003 and
graduating in 2008. Though he
once imagined a career in personal
training, but when that didn’t work
out, he began seeking options for
the future.
He ended back up at Wayland,
thinking that maybe he had a
chance to work in the lives of young
people and steer them on the right
path. Originally planning just to take
coursework for certification, he
opted to do the entire Master of
Education degree and give himself
even more opportunities.
His experience in student teaching in third grade at Highland
Elementary during the spring
semester affirmed that choice – “I
feel like this is my true calling” –
and made him even more excited
about his future.
“It was more than I ever could
have imagined,” he said of student
teaching. “The kids opened up to
me, and I still keep in touch with
them. The teachers enjoyed having
me and welcomed me into their
classrooms.
“I feel like I was lost at a very
Life Saved are some of what
they are doing. They are working with the families of a
group of 30 orphaned or vulnerable children. Michael leads
an ESL class, soccer/life
coaching and pick-up and distribution of food donations
from local grocery stores.
Heather is in charge of a skills
training program and also is
involved in teaching many
HIV training courses through-
44 footprints
young age. I had no father figure or
role model… there was no one
there for me,” he added. “I want to
go back as a teacher and be the difference in a kid’s life.”
Moreno’s attitude is 180degrees from where it used to be.
He said he now focuses outwardly
only, intent on serving others and
paying forward the opportunities he
has received through education. He
plans next to pursue the Master of
Arts in Counseling through WBU
and eventually be a school counselor, pouring himself into the lives
of young students.
“Everything I do at this point in
my life is for others,” he said. “I
used to have a really bad temper,
and I did nothing but destroy (my
family) and our self-esteem. Now I
want to pay that back and build
people up. Teaching is a great way
to do that.”
Moreno recalls a few good
teachers in his past that tried to
reach out to him but admits he
wasn’t listening to anyone else at
the time. Earlier this semester, he
had the opportunity to have a
phone conversation with Sharaud
Moore, one of the young men fea-
out South Africa and extending into the southern Africa
region.
(vanbrugby@yahoo.com)
CHRIS WRIGHT, EX’05,
and wife JOANN HOLLOWAY WRIGHT,
BBA’06, welcomed their first
child, a son named Landon
Howard, on May 6, 2011,
weighing 8 pounds, 11 ounces.
Joann is a senior business
tured in the 2007 movie Freedom
Writers, after one of his professors,
Scherry Scarborough, saw teacher
Erin Gruwell speak at West Texas
A&M. Moore’s own story mirrors
Moreno’s in many ways.
“He shared some of his own stories and how he came away from
that and decided to grow up and
leave the past in the past,” Moreno
said. “What stuck with me that he
said was to keep moving forward,
keep moving on. He also said, ‘Life
experiences determine the type of
teacher you are’ and I’ll never forget
that.”
Moreno said he still struggles
with insecurity about his past and
knows it will always be a part of
who he is and what he must overcome. But he finds comfort and
peace through Wayland friends and
at Harvest Christian Fellowship,
where he attends church. He knows
God has something better for him
around the corner.
“I don’t really see myself as a
success story but as someone who
made a good choice. I’m nothing
special… anyone can do it,” he said.
“You just have to decide to do it.
That’s all.”
assistant in the University ID
office at Texas Tech and is
pursuing her master’s degree
at Tech. Chris is a field representative for a commercial
roofing company called
Armko. The family lives in
Lubbock. (3613 33rd Street,
Lubbock, Texas 79410)
2010s
KRISTIN BLAKELY,
BSIS’10, was married on June
11 to Chris Winegar, a senior
religion major at Wayland, in
her hometown of Borger.
DONNIE BROWN, BA’93,
director of Baptist Student
Ministries at WBU, officiated.
Kristin is a teacher in
Plainview and a former Miss
Wayland.
from Page 29
Vigo Park
Alice Walker
Laura Lokey Walker
T.C. and Peggy Wall
B.H. and Ollie Warren
Dr. J. H. Wayland
Dr. L. C. Wayland
Wayside Baptist Church
Weir Charitable Trust
Jessie Vandiver West
J. R. West
Sarah Helton Wiggins
Thomas Darrell Wiggins
David and Myrt Wilder
Katy Brian Wiley Memorial
W. E. Williamson
Claude and Glenn Witten
Glenn Witten
Tom Witten
Virgil Claude Witten
Malcom and Dorothy
Womack
Joe P. Wood
Guy Woods Music
Blonda Woodward
Mae Allena Worley
Faythe Anne Blake Wright
James T. Wright
Myrtle Wright
Norman and Louise Wright in
Memory of Julianne Wright
Walter and Elsie Wright
Merle E. Young
Scholarships established but
not yet endowed or awarded
Dr. Phil and Marian Almes
Alumni Centennial
Harvey and Betty Angel
Margarito and Maria Elena
Arellano
Dr. Paul and Duanea Armes
Sybil Leonard Armes Musical
Joanne Bowers Chemical
Education
Debbe Brightbill Art
William Douglas
“Butch”Camp
Myrtle and Charles Chapman
Class of 1960
College Heights Baptist
Church
Perry and Cassie Collins
CPA Endowed Scholarship
Anita Cranor Memorial
Crownover
Larry and Betty C. Donaldson
J. Wayland Edwards
O.E. and Anna Fuson
Robert and May Montague
Garrett
Rev. Glen and Mary O.
Godsey
Zaphryn Green Memorial
Louis Willard and Kathryn
Love Hardcastle
Byron and Leota Hardgrove
Louise Harper
Mark and Jennie Lynn
Hodges
James Hogue
James and Donna Hollon
Don and Clarecia Jackson
Family
Vernon “Buddy” Jackson
Phyllis Allred Joslin
Loyd Kelley Religion
Weston Mannin
Fred and Sally Meeks
Ella R. Miller
Lloyd and Betty Morton
Edward M. and Laura
Osborne
Mark and Helen Pair
Garland L. and Waty Phillips
Lev and Ella Prichard
Melvin and Barbara Pyeatt
Vaughn and Johnene Ross
Otto and Madonna Schacht
Martha Lange Seale
Jack Smith Memorial
Corky and Donald Lee Terrell
Frank and Mary Tidwell
Clinton and Phyllis Wall
Let Us Hear From You!
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Please complete and return to:
Alumni Services, 1900 W. 7th, CMB 437
Plainview, TX 79072
E-mail to: andrewsd@wbu.edu or susiev@wbu.edu
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2011 Baptist General Convention of Texas
The 2011 Baptist General Convention of Texas will be held at the Amarillo Civic Center Oct. 23-26.
The Association of Former Students and Office of Church Services will host a dinner at 5 p.m. on
Monday, Oct. 24, at the Civic Center with details to be announced later.
If you plan to attend the convention, we hope you’ll have dinner with us and visit the Wayland booth as
well. RSVP for the dinner appreciated at andrewsd@wbu.edu
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
1900 West Seventh Street, CMB 437
Plainview, Texas 79072-6998
Craftsman
Printers, Inc.
on the scene
Address Service Requested
Stay in touch with Wayland!
The Association of Former Students of
Wayland Baptist University
n Call us at 806.291.3600
n Contact us by e-mail at andrewsd@wbu.edu
or susiev@wbu.edu for Class Notes, address
changes, chapter information
Dorm Constrution
Construction crews
continue to work on the
new men’s dormitory.
Here, nearly half the
foundation has been
poured. The 350-bed
men’s dormitory is
located on Quincy
across from College
Heights Baptist Church.