Baylor Line | Spring 2018

MAYOR DEAVER SEES THE FUTURE THE HUSTLE IRONMAN70.3 CAMPUS TOWN

VISIONARY MAGNOLIA EFFECT

STARTUPWACO RIVERFRONT ANCHOR INSTITUTION

W H AT H O L D S U S T O G E T H E R ?

W H AT D O W E O W E E A C H O T H E R ?

A R E W E F A M I LY O R N E I G H B O R S ?

Neighbors THE BAYLOR LINE

T H E B AY L O R L I N E | S P R I N G 2 0 1 8 V O L . 8 1 , N O. 2 PUBLISHED BY THE BAYLOR LINE FOUNDATION SINCE 1946

Executive Vice President Allen Holt allen@baylorlinefoundation.com Editor-in-Chief Craig Cunningham craig@baylorlinefoundation.com Publication Designer Haley Gandy cedargandy.com CFO James McInnis Member Services Kellie Juandiego kellie@baylorlinefoundation.com Marketing Director Shelby Pipken For advertising opportunities, email ads@baylorlinefoundation.com Letters and Comments can be sent to baylorline@baylorlinefoundation.com Contact Info The Baylor Line P.O. Box 2089 Waco TX 76703 254.732.0393

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As a boy growing up on the outskirts of Waco, I remember visiting Baylor on a few special occasions. I marveled at the exhibits in Strecker Museum.

I took speech lessons from a therapist in Neill Morris Hall. I attended summer baseball camps.

And I will always remember hiking up the hill to Floyd Casey Stadium with my grandfather, having parked in a free alley near Franklin Avenue. Baylor was always in the peripheral of my experience as a Wacoan.

Ultimately, when it came time to choose a college, I didn’t want to go to Baylor because I didn’t want to live in Waco. My guess is that plenty of prospective students have said the same over the years.

And as a student in a local public high school, I was surrounded by the many voices that said Baylor was for preps, goodie goodies, and rich kids. So I enrolled at

the University of Oklahoma.

Thankfully, I changed my mind a few weeks before the Fall Semester (because of a girl) and found a way to attend Baylor.

But the question of the Waco/ Baylor relationship continues to intrigue me. In some ways, it is a tale of two worlds. For decades the interstate served as a literal and metaphorical barrier between the city and its most notable university. On the one hand, you have a university that aspires to be an elite research institution, and on the other hand you have Waco ISD fighting to save schools from closure. You have an expensive private university planted in the middle of an impoverished neighborhood. You have a Baptist tradition at Baylor, and the complex and bizarre history of Waco. Something just doesn’t seem to add up. It never has.

But in the last few years, Waco

has undergone dramatic changes, and Baylor has been an intentional partner. McLane Stadium certainly influences perceptions of those who pass through on the interstate. But more is in the works. Much more. After enduring decades of empty talk about downtown development, a few key leaders are finally making good on the promise. Yes, a big part of the transformation is the Chip and Joanna effect. But that’s an incomplete interpretation of what is happening here. Baylor graduates are sticking around and opening businesses like never before. The city is luring alumni who own large businesses to bring high-paying jobs to Waco and appeal to graduates. Waco has the rugged energy of a boomtown, on the verge of regaining the status and promise it hasn’t had since the devastating tornado of 1953.

IN THIS ISSUE OF THE BAYLOR LINE, WE EXPLORE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WACO AND BAYLOR.

Like any longstanding partnership, some of the history is messy, and some of it is beautiful. Some of the history is too complicated to be fully captured in this format. A few of my favorite pieces include an interview with Baylor grad and Waco Mayor Kyle Deaver, Rae Jefferson’s creative piece about Route 7, and former Texas poet-laureate Jane Seale’s poem called “Passage”.

As an alumni who spent your college years in Waco, I’m sure that you have your own perceptions, both good and bad, of the city. In the end, you may say this is still the land of scandal-makers, antique collectors, motorcycle gangs, religious zealots, Branch Davidians, muralists and moralists.

But isn’t it wonderful?

Craig Cunningham ‘08 | Editor-in-Chief

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Old Friend for a New Phase

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his time of year, many of us are thinking about graduation.

Whether it’s from high school, college or graduate school, it’s an important change in a person’s life.

At the Baylor Line Foundation, it’s an important and exciting time of year, as well. For high school graduates, our Legacy Scholarship program is helping to make the dream of Baylor become a reality.

For Baylor graduates, we are here to keep you informed and engaged with your alma mater.

From the beginning, almost 160 years ago, our mission has been to support Baylor alumni. We do this primarily through our Legacy Scholarships, our annual Hall of Fame Awards Dinner honoring outstanding alumni, and the publication of this magazine. Our membership consists of a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives, but one thing we can all agree on is that we want to support and strengthen Baylor and her mission in the best way possible.

As we journey through another graduation season, there are actions you can take to ensure the Baylor Line Foundation continues its mission that will benefit your children and grandchildren. First, memberships. If you are a recent graduate, join.

If you know a recent graduate, a membership to the BLF would be a great gift.

Second, consider becoming a Torchbearer. This giving program is the lifeblood of the organization. And third, we want to hear from you and champion your voices.

This means submitting stories, updates, and ideas on how to reach more alumni.

Let us know what’s going on in your lives so we can share it with our members.

You can now easily submit notes, obituaries and other information on our website.

As we have been making changes to our website, magazine and membership model, we’ve also been listening closely to member feedback. The good news is that we have been experiencing positive growth trends over the last few months as we continue to build relations with the University, students and prospective members. Our goal is to be an organization that you can count on to bring you stories, connections and a way to make positive contributions to Baylor. And to be your friend for another 160 years.

Onward!

Allen Holt ’80 | Executive Vice President

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1 EDITOR’S LETTER

WHAT HOLDS US TOGETHER? WHAT DO WE OWE EACH OTHER? ARE WE FAMILY OR NEIGHBORS?

6 VOICES

DR. JON SINGLETARY | DR. MARCUS NELSON (7)

10 GIANTS

DR. JAMES VARDAMAN (12) | JACK DILLARD (14) | MARK WHITE (15)

20 INTERVIEW MAYOR DEAVER

28 FEATURES

ANCHOR (28) | SANDTOWN (34) | UNBOUND (40) | COLLABORATION (44) | BUGS (50)

37 CREATIVE EVERAFTER TREE (37)

| PASSAGE (43)

| TORNADO (48)

| THE BUS (49)

46 HISTORY HOUR TOWERS

58 HOUSEKEEPING REGENTS (58) | ANNUAL MEETING (59) | BOARD (59)

| HOF (60)

| OBITUARIES (72)

63 ALUMNI STORIES BOB GRIFFITTS (64) | WHITNEY ASAY (66) | ADAM DEBOWER (68)

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You’ve taken a long journey to get here, and you deserve to celebrate.

Take a deep breath and be proud of what you’ve accomplished! But there’s something you should know. That Degree you earned through years of hard work, late nights, and persistence is not a reward.

It’s an invitation.

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Will you accept?

Photo courtesy of Baylor Photography

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Voic HOW CAN BAYLOR AND WACO STRENGTHEN THEIR PARTNERSHIP?

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ifteen years ago, the late Baylor dean Diana Garland wrote, “If Waco, Texas is not a better place, then I wonder if we have really embraced what it means to be a Christian university.”

Baylor Faculty and staff, and their families, are Waco students, Sunday School teachers, nonprofit board members, and civic leaders in a wide array of settings. And yet, we wrestle with the nature of our Baylor-Waco relationship, nurturing it more in some seasons and taking it for granted in others, but most of us at Baylor recognize the value of the context in which we find ourselves. We strive not only to be a premier Christian university, but one that is rooted in care for our community.

We look to the future of Baylor-Waco relationships and ask: How do we foster a model that is characterized by mutuality, reciprocity, and care? When each entity has their own needs, and very diverse needs, discerning what is most meaningfully shared in the relationship can be quite difficult. There have been, and will continue to be, parts of the university and parts of the community who feel more heard and valued than others.

Regardless, we are in a place

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where the voice and values of each entity matter for the quality of the relationship.

In recent years, we have begun to nurture this relationship in new ways. As examples, the leadership of Waco ISD, Heart of Texas Community Health Center (Family Health Center), the Doris Miller Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and many other organizations provide models where the community is as much in the driver’s seat of collaboration and change as the university is. Pat Atkins called to ask how Waco ISD and Baylor could strengthen family involvement in schools and enhance student readiness. LTC Michael Russell reached out to ask how faculty and students can work together to support returning war veterans at the VA Center of Excellence for Research. Dr. Jackson Griggs approached us about research and practice to address social needs in primary care settings serving low-income families and individuals.

These few examples and so many more reflect a desire for a rich and meaningful relationship.

They also reflect years of trustbuilding, risk-taking, and longing for an authentic exchange.

These are emerging as the traits of genuine partnership.

From the years of relationshipbuilding that bring us to where we are, Baylor faculty and staff know that our faith is what compels us to love our neighbors and what shapes our approaches to teaching, research, and service. The work of the university is not for the university itself, but for the world. In being called to love the world as God so loves the world, we are striving to be the kind of neighbor we want Waco to be for us.

Diana concluded with a reminder that being a premier Christian university calls us to make a difference in the community around us. “It is not just that we are called to serve, but that service is essential in shaping and informing our unique Christian contribution to the grand tasks of academic inquiry.”

May it be so. And may our academic tasks be grounded in genuine care and concern for our neighbors, rooted in meaningful relationships with the community, and mindful of the gift that Waco is to us.

Dr. Jon Singletary

Dean of Baylor School of Social Work

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here are few partnerships that have as profound an influence on our students as the one between Waco ISD and Baylor University. Baylor’s students live out the values and vision of the university through their service to our students as volunteers, mentors and teaching interns. Baylor’s faculty members are equally engaged in our schools as parents, volunteers, and academics sharing insights from their respective fields.

That connection is exemplified by the professional development school (PDS) partnership between Waco ISD and the Baylor School of Education. What began 25 years ago at a single Waco ISD school has grown into a nationally awarded teacher preparation program that places teaching interns at six campuses.

Both the teachers being trained through the partnership and the students that they teach are transformed by their experiences at our PDS campuses. I suspect that more than a few of our students have been inspired to become teachers by the role models they met through the partnership, and I know that some of our best teachers started out their careers at one of our PDS campuses.

It may be exemplary, but the PDS partnership isn’t unique. The Garland School of Social Work works with us on the BEAR project, which supports the social-emotional growth of our students. The Baylor Equestrian Team has adopted Alta Vista Elementary providing books for kindergarten students and field trips for fourth graders. The Office of Community Engagement & Service connects students from Baylor with students at J.H. Hines Elementary as reading partners and tutors. The list goes on.

While the connection between Waco ISD and Baylor University is strong, there are also opportunities for it to become even stronger.

As Waco ISD’s superintendent, I hope that Baylor’s students and alumni see the opportunity to form a bond with our schools that continues long after they graduate from the university.

I would invite this magazine’s readers, especially those in the Waco area, to continue living out Baylor’s commitment to service as an adopt-a-school partner, a mentor or a tutor. Waco ISD’s community partnership specialist can help you get started. Call Stephanie Hines at 254-755-9510 or email her at stephanie.hines@wacoisd.org.

There’s also an important role for Baylor University to play in making sure that college is an option for every Waco ISD graduate. Of course, Baylor University won’t be the right fit for every student, but Baylor students, faculty and alumni can help to demystify college for all of our students and open the door for the future Bears among them.

Dr. Marcus Nelson Superintendent, Waco ISD

want to share your voice on this question ?

Submit responses to voices@baylorlinefoundation.com 7

Courtesy of The Texas Collection

1968/2018 When Moody Library opened in the Fall of 1968, the building was crowned with brilliant lights that marked the north end of campus. Over time, those lights burned out and were never replaced. This year, on the 50th anniversary of Moody’s opening, Baylor was able to “bring back the light” through a fundraising campaign. They replaced the original bulbs with 92 brand new LED lights. For the first time in many years, Moody shines in the darkness.

To learn more about this project, visit baylor.edu/libraries

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Photo courtesy of Baylor Photography

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jv JV

REMEMBERING JAMES VARDAMAN

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remarkable man, my Uncle James possessed a voracious thirst for knowledge which he gladly bestowed on those fortunate enough to call him their professor, mentor, friend, or kinsman. He could walk into a classroom and without so much as a note, keep his students spellbound with tales of English Kings, the French Revolution, Napoleonic wars and even breathe life into the Industrial Revolution.

He was an inveterate traveler with whom I shared a never to be forgotten journey to the Middle East and Eastern Europe in 1969. I can recall him telling the story of Admiral Nelson’s destruction of Napoleon’s fleet in the Battle of the Nile, while we dined outside Alexandria with a view of the Mediterranean harbor front and he regaled me with tales of the Elgin Marbles expropriation to the British Museum when we set foot on the Acropolis in Athens. Fortunately, he graced many others with such travel experiences for the next forty years of his life.

As he was wont to do, he would fix his piercing brown eyes upon each of us and start the conversation with “Of course you know,” which rarely was the case in regard to the topic upon which he was poised to expound. One then had the choice to tell the truth that he really did not “know” or to prevaricate and risk humiliation with pointed questions designed to gauge the veracity or lack thereof of one’s knowledge.

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He unconditionally loved his family, the Vardamans and all of their relations. And speaking of relations, he and my mother/his sister, Ann Vardaman Miller, had a doozy of one. Yet, somehow, they would muddle through whatever issues they might have with each other, while never denying each other the admiration and respect that they so badly craved all of their lives. Both of them were driven by a Depression Era childhood, not knowing their father, who died two weeks before James was born, and having been passed on to orphanages and uncaring family members so their mother of five could make a living.

This was his and her background and their motivation to be the best professors in their academic fields, and they were.

James Vardaman was a fiercely proud man who was keenly aware of his humble beginnings and truly valued the person who contributed to society in ways beyond material wealth. An unabashed liberal, his fervor for the common man was contagious.

Woe be unto the person who belittled him or expressed disdain for something or someone dear to his heart. But his lust for life and knowledge also begat his passion for books and reading.

With his encyclopedic mind, he could identify the name and location of each of the books in his voluminous library. In fact, after he read a book, he said that he just enjoyed the touch and smell of the book.

It is hard to believe that James Vardaman is no longer with us in a physical sense, but his spirit and the knowledge and ideas which he imparted are alive in each of us who had the great fortune to know him. During the last few years, he would rhetorically ask me the question, “So Robert, you still think that death is an option?� To which I would respond with a halted laugh. Now I wish it were an option, as I and all who knew and loved him miss James Vardaman with the same passion with which he embraced life.

Voices Story by Robert Miller

professor, mentor, friend, kinsman 13

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here are a lot of things people might be surprised to learn about Jack Dillard. For one, he was an avid scuba diver. I never talked with him about it after he became unable to walk with ease, but I suspect that one of his great regrets later on was that he could no longer dive.

In fact, those who primarily knew Jack as a man in a business suit might be surprised to know how adventurous Jack was. I was vacationing with him once in Hawaii when we both decided to try parasailing. I spent a few minutes bumping along about 30 feet above the water scared to death; I looked up, and 500 feet above me was this tiny speck that was Jack. When he came down, he said he had had a wonderful time, just leisurely drifting along.

Jack’s musical tastes were also seemingly out of character. He loved the Rolling Stones and probably attended dozens of Stones concerts in his life.

Jack was my first cousin but being only six months younger, he was more like my brother. So what is not surprising is how much every day I, like many others, miss talking to and being with him.

jd Jd

REMEMBERING JACK DILLARD

Story by Hughes Dillard

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REMEMBERING

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MARK WHITE

s the 43rd governor of Texas, and the fourth Baylor graduate to serve in that state office, Mark White ushered in education reforms that still impact schools, including limits on elementary class size, the “no pass, no play” policy for high school athletes, and the first-ever statewide testing standards.

For White, age 77, who died at his Houston home on August 5, 2017, those accomplishments were the highlights of a political career guided by a principle taken from Sam Houston: “Do right and risk the consequences.”

In a lengthy interview with the Houston Chronicle just days before his death, White lamented how partisan politics have become in recent years, in both Austin and Washington. White said that can make it much harder to accomplish goals that benefit all Texans.

Mark’s funeral filled the vast church sanctuary with an amazing bipartisan gathering of hundreds of friends. “Look who he has brought together,” Pastor Ed Young said at one point, “What else, who else, would bring us together?”

The education reforms championed by White, who served as governor from 1983-1987, were not universally lauded. The “no pass, no play” rule, which required students to maintain passing grades to play sports, was politically unpopular in a state where high school football is revered. More recently, he has had athletes thank him and credit him for their college education and professional careers in many fields.

White also called for a $4 billion tax increase to pay for teacher raises and class size limits. The tax hike was partly blamed for scuttling his bid for re-election.

Still, White, the son of a school teacher, had no regrets.

“He instilled the important things in life,” said his son Andrew. “He was clear about that. God comes first, country comes second, then family. I saw him live that out in his life, in his work and calling.”

After earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Baylor University in 1962, he went on to earn a law degree from Baylor Law School in 1965.

White “was always someone who would tackle tough issues, even if it was not in his best political interests. He stood up for what he thought was right,” said John Whitmire, D-Houston. “He was not afraid to do the right thing and suffer the consequences.”

After White left office in 1987, he returned to private law practice in Houston, and was involved in later years in touting technology to make prison perimeter fences escape-proof and detect heartbeats inside truck trailers, a system that he said could help thwart human smuggling across the Texas-Mexico border.

White also served as chairman of the Houston Independent School District Foundation, a non-profit organization which supports the district. His wife, Linda Gale, has been a longtime

leader of Communities in Schools, a stay-in-schools program Mark brought to Texas.

In 2014, an elementary school in west Houston was named after Mark White. It was a fitting tribute.

Mark was a leader in Bears for Leadership Reform, a group of Baylor alumni with the courage to seek to restore what Baylor has lost in recent years. He challenged the message being sent to Baylor students, alumni and the eyes of the world today.

Mark believed it is time we come together and are again “Baylor University First” in the quality of our leadership, our spirit, our standards and practices. He often referred to a favorite quote: “If you mess up, fess up.”

In his down time, White loved to hunt and take his sailboat out on Lake Travis, said his son, Andrew. He took each of his nine grandchildren on a trip to Washington, D.C., complete with a personal tour of the White House and the Capitol.

“The guy wrote the book on honor and decency,” said longtime friend Barry Silverman. “If I had a million dollars in a suitcase and put it under Mark White’s bed, it would still be there a year later.”

As a permanent tribute to Mark White, the Baylor School of Law has established a fund for the Mark White Chair for Public Service and Public Interest. A fundraising event is scheduled for June 21st in Houston, Texas.

For more information, contact the Baylor School of Law.

Story by Emily Tinsley

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Scholarship

Baylor Line Foundation

As a psychology major in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences, Arlington junior Victoria Malone is pursuing her degree with a passion for mental healthcare. She

was inspired by an internship she had this semester where she worked with primary care clinics to help implement mental health care into primary care.

As a result, she aspires to work in an overlap between public health and mental health.

“I think mental health matters just as much as physical health, but for some reason it’s something that people don’t pay as much attention to and don’t take care of as much as they would a broken bone or an illness,” Malone said. “I think it’s a good thing

to take care of because it can affect a lot of people in really severe ways and if people can take care of their mental health issues before they turn into something bad then they can live healthier, happier lives.”

Malone hopes to conduct research on integrating mental health with healthcare. Although she is still figuring out what that career path looks like, she is determined to use her passion to drive her career.

“My biggest ambition would be to become a principal investigator of some kind to be able to do my own research within public health.

Specifically, I would really love to be able to do my own research with populations that don’t receive as equitable healthcare or mental health care,” Malone said.

Story by Joy Moton

Malone said she feels blessed to be a part of Baylor. She appreciates the unique support of Baylor’s professors and the fact that she can share in the Baylor bond with various members of her family as alumni. She said she has noticed a distinction in the way her father, cousins, aunts and uncles who have gone to Baylor conduct their lives.

“I can see the Christian influence at Baylor has carried on in them,” Malone said. “Getting that same foundation to carry on those values has been a cool part of coming to Baylor.”

As a recipient of the Baylor Line Foundation Scholarship for Legacy Scholars, Malone is grateful for the ability the scholarship has given her to make more time for the things she loves to do. Now that she has more time on her hands, she can continue following in the footsteps of her uncles as a member of the Baylor Religious Hour Choir (BRH).

Malone was drawn to BRH because of their focus on sharing the message of the Christian faith through song.

As she has gotten to know the other members of the choir better, she has obtained close friends.

“Every week I get to sing with some great, talented friends about something that unites us all: Christ,” Malone

said. “Being a part of BRH choir has kind of been a metaphor for my time at Baylor. Even though my voice isn’t individually heard in the midst of all the voices in the choir, I get to play a part in something bigger than just me. And

by all of us working together, we get to share a powerful message as a group in a way that none of us could do on our own.”

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Baylor grad and Waco Mayor Kyle Deaver talks development, the economy, and the bridges being built over I-35.

mayor

DEAVER I N T E R V I E W

Q&A

Photos courtesy of Kathryn Kreuger, story by Bryan Fonnville

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RIVERFRONT MAGNOLIA EFFECT

STARTUPWACO VISIONARY

ANCHOR INSTITUTION

THE HUSTLE IRONMAN70.3 CAMPUS TOWN

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M A Y O R

& QA

D E A V E R

WHAT’S AN AVERAGE DAY LIKE FOR THE MAYOR OF WACO, TEXAS?

Obviously, it changes every day. But there are usually at least three or four, sometimes seven or eight, meetings with various groups, staff members, and committees. It’s pretty broad in terms of what you’re covering.

Fortunately, we’ve got great staff and city management that give us support. The office of the mayor of Waco — there’s no such thing.

You are a volunteer, but it is very near a full-time job.

PRIOR TO BECOMING MAYOR, YOU SERVED ON THE CITY COUNCIL. WHAT WAS IT THAT MADE YOU WANT TO RUN FOR CITY COUNCIL, ASIDE, OF COURSE, FROM THE BIG SALARY AND THE NUMEROUS

[Laughs] A friend of mine asked if I would consider applying for that position. It really was the first time I had ever given any thought to that at all. I had served on enough boards and been involved in the city, and I think I just felt like I had the ability to do it at the time, and I had a flexible enough schedule to do that work. And I love Waco. I grew up here.

I’ve always been passionate about Waco. The thought of being in politics does not appeal to me at all. It still doesn’t appeal to me. But being able to be involved in this sort of rebirth that Waco has experienced over the last few years – you could kind of see that coming back then – has been really rewarding to be part of.

PERKS?

YOUR GRANDFATHER (BUDDY BOSTICK) FOUNDED KWTX-TV HERE IN WACO AND SERVED AS CHAIRMAN OF AMERICAN BANK FOR OVER 30 YEARS. HE, LIKE YOU, ALSO WENT TO BAYLOR…EXCEPT I BELIEVE YOUR GRANDDAD WORKED OUT A SPECIAL DEAL WITH PAT NEFF…?

Yeah, that’s what I’ve always been told. He grew up in relative poverty on a cotton farm outside of Moody, Texas. His older sister had come to Baylor. He worked out a deal with Pat Neff, who was then the president of the university. They started KWBU, the radio station. And he convinced Pat Neff that a great way for him to spread his message and to get his speeches out in front of more people was to have a radio station. In exchange, his last two years at Baylor were tuition-free. And so that was the genesis of KWBU way back then. And he went on to work in other radio stations. Then he joined the army air corps during WWII, and he was training to be a fighter pilot and completed his training just as the war ended, so he never went into battle. But he was trained to be a fighter pilot and was a really good pilot. He quit flying when he was ninety.

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UH…DID YOU FLY WITH HIM WHEN HE WAS NINETY? [Laughing] Yeah, I did. He would fly by

himself sometimes, too. He might should have stopped at eighty-nine, let’s put it that way.

WHAT WAS YOUR BAYLOR EXPERIENCE LIKE?

I had a great time at Baylor. I met my wife at Baylor — that was probably the best thing I did at Baylor, without a doubt. She ended up being sweetheart of SAE. Honestly, the fraternity was so good for me from the standpoint of developing some leadership skills and just being involved in things — building floats, doing service projects, SING, intramurals. I wasn’t a great athlete, but we had a great time playing intramurals. So my grades weren’t the best. [Laughter] But I had a lot of fun and learned a lot in the process; but, they were good enough to get me into law school.

THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF TALK THE LAST FEW YEARS ABOUT HOW STRONG OF A PARTNERSHIP THERE IS NOW BETWEEN THE CITY AND BAYLOR, BUT IT HASN’T ALWAYS BEEN LIKE THAT. WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT

I think you have to give Judge Starr a lot of credit for the closer relationship between Baylor and the city. I wouldn’t just say the city, but the community and Central Texas, too. When Baylor asked the TIF board here—which is composed of the city, the county, the Waco Independent School District and MCC—to contribute to Baylor Stadium, and the community made a huge investment in the stadium, I think that was a real important step in cementing the relationship and recognizing that we are very, very connected. When Baylor does well, it’s really good for Waco. When Waco does well, it’s good for Baylor. Without Baylor, Waco looks very, very different. It really does. I think Dr. Livingstone is committed to that. She and I have had several meetings about things that we need to be continuing to work on together.

She’s certainly got her plate full right now, but I think that you’re going to continue to see new initiatives that take place between Baylor and the city and the community that will both strengthen Waco and strengthen Baylor going forward.

HOW THINGS ARE NOW?

OBVIOUSLY MCLANE STADIUM SERVED AS A CATALYST FOR SOME OF THE OTHER DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS THAT ARE GOING ON. WHAT ARE A COUPLE OF PROJECTS THAT YOU’RE

Startup Waco is a project that grew out of a position that was created by Baylor and Waco for a recent Baylor graduate named Kevin Renois. At the same time, the Greater Waco Chamber had a small co-working space aimed at entrepreneurs called thInc Space that had done some good but just didn’t have the legs that it needed to do what we envision Startup Waco being able to do. Startup Waco is really about the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Waco. The plan is to open up a shared workspace called Hustle on Austin Avenue. It is a community-wide collaboration that includes the Greater Waco Chamber, Baylor University, the City of Waco, Waco Foundation, and hopefully McLennan County, Cooper Foundation, Rapoport Foundation, and private donors. Baylor is playing a key role and has given Greg Leman, who is the Director of Baylor’s LAUNCH business accelerator, as a loaned executive to help us get Startup Waco and Hustle going. So that’s a really exciting project. We’ve got so many.

We now have a lot of students at Baylor who want to stay in Waco, which is a very big change from when I was at Baylor.

PARTICULARLY EXCITED ABOUT?

YOU MENTIONED THE CONTRIBUTION TO MCLANE STADIUM. IN 2014, THE DOWNTOWN TAX INCREMENT FINANCE ZONE AWARDED $35 MILLION TO BAYLOR FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE STADIUM. AT THE TIME, THERE WAS A LOT OF TALK ABOUT THE STADIUM BEING A “COMMUNITY EVENTS COMPLEX.” THE MAYOR AT THE TIME, MALCOLM DUNCAN JR., SAID THAT WAS ONE OF THE REASONS HE FELT PERSUADED TO SUPPORT THE $35 MILLION CONTRIBUTION. AND BAYLOR’S REAGAN RAMSOWER SAID “BAYLOR COMMITTED TO THE STADIUM’S OFF-SEASON SUCCESS WHEN IT ACCEPTED $35 MILLION FROM THE CITY OF WACO.” DO YOU FEEL LIKE MCLANE STADIUM IS GETTING THE AMOUNT OF USE THAT THE CITY INITIALLY

The concerts have not materialized yet like we had hoped that they would. I think the Baylor Club, though, is constantly used for community events and is a real showpiece for Waco to be able to have events over there and look back across the river. And as the river continues to develop, it’s going to be even more that way. So, some of that (vision) has been realized, some of it has yet to be realized. I still think that significant concerts will take place there. Baylor and Waco need to continue to evolve a little bit to get to that point.

EXPECTED?

I think that’s part of what we have learned from CampusTown.

CampusTown is designed to try to encourage students to learn to love Waco – to try to understand all of the great things that are happening in Waco while they’re students. Then, if they’re interested in staying, CampusTown is designed to help them find jobs in Waco. That’s been the challenge. The people that want to stay in Waco can’t find a job that is commensurate with the degree that they’ve earned at Baylor. We think that that’s starting to change. We’re working on several initiatives to try to change that, and we think that the entrepreneurial aspect of it, of Startup Waco, gives at least young entrepreneurs the tools that they need to stay in Waco and have their new companies thrive. And so, we’ve got to continue to try to get more white-collar business downtown so that we can attract more folks like you and keep you in Waco. I think you’re starting to see it now with the Young Professionals group.

There’s a trend developing of new graduates and recent graduates who are wanting to stay in Waco or return to Waco after short stints in bigger cities, and that’s very encouraging.

YOU SAID THERE ARE SOME THINGS UNDER WAY. ARE YOU ABLE TO TALK ABOUT WHAT THOSE THINGS ARE?

We did a Request for Proposal on Heritage Square. There is a developer, Phillip Williams, who is trying to put together a development in Waco. He’s got some local partners, including Chris McGowan, who is formerly with the chamber, to do Class A office space in Downtown Waco. And his plan revolves around getting companies to relocate to Waco. We’ve got tons and tons of companies who are relocating to Texas. Many of them are going to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. A lot of them are going to Austin, Houston, and San Antonio. And he (Phillip) is convinced that we can do that in Waco. And he’s got some people that have a lot of experience in the relocation of big companies that are telling him, “You may not get a headquarters right now, but there are lots of secondary offices and port offices that you could attract that could have good paying jobs.” And if we can line things up for workforce between Baylor graduates, MCC graduates, and graduates from their university programs with Texas Tech and Tarleton, that you’ve got workforce opportunities here that are just what these companies are looking for, it’s just a matter of trying to get them matched up and aligned. That’s going to take some work. But I think we’re going to try to start small and see if this thing can get legs. And if it can, it will really transform downtown. There are a number of other developments that are also going on downtown that are mostly retail and multi-family focused. We need all of that, but we really need more high-quality office space downtown.

23

FOR YEARS, IT SEEMS LIKE THERE’S BEEN CONSTANT TALK ABOUT DEVELOPING THE RIVERFRONT. CAN YOU GIVE US AN UPDATE ON WHERE THINGS STAND WITH THE CITY-OWNED LAND THAT FRONTS THE RIVER AND WHEN CONSTRUCTION MIGHT BEGIN? We’re clear and ready to go on the site where Catalyst Urban is doing a promenade project, which is a combination of retail, multi-family, a boutique hotel on the river, and then restaurant pad sites on the river. And so they’re ready to go now. They’ve got to complete their plans now that they’ve got a clean site, and we expect that construction should begin there by the beginning of 2019, if not a little before. There’s also another project down there called Brazos Commons, which is owned by two local developers, Joe Beard and Rick Sheldon, and theirs is also retail and multi-family. They want to put a larger conference hotel in that space. They’ve been committed to this thing for a long time, and I feel confident that they’ll get something good done there in the next couple of years.

SO FOR A BAYLOR FAN COMING BACK ON GAME DAY, WHEN IS ALL OF THAT GOING TO BE

That’s a great question.

I think—realistically—you’re probably looking at three years before it’s really finished. You’ll see things happening a lot sooner than that, but in terms of being able to stay in one of the hotels or eat in the restaurants down there, I think it’s probably about the time we win our next Big 12 championship.

DONE?

24

& QA

M A Y O R

D E A V E R

FOR A LOT OF ALUMS COMING BACK TO CAMPUS, WACO LOOKS DIFFERENT THAN IT DID DURING THEIR STUDENT YEARS. WHAT EXCITES YOU ABOUT WACO’S FUTURE AND WHAT DO YOU THINK

Well I think we have a lot of momentum right now in Waco. Obviously, Chip and Joanna Gaines and the Magnolia effect have been tremendous.

FUTURE GENERATIONS OF ALUMS CAN LOOK FORWARD TO?

DO YOU TEXT BACK AND FORTH WITH THEM?

HOW MANY MORE TERMS DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE

[Laughing] No, I’m not on their radar at all. I’d like to ask Joanna for some advice every once-in-a-while.

They are so busy, it’s unbelievable. LaSalle is already starting to redevelop. With the new Magnolia Table at the end of LaSalle and the shuttle that we’re going to put in that will run from downtown, you’ll see that area start to redevelop, which will be really good for Baylor. And then, in addition, at the end of this year they’re going to start the expansion and renovation of I-35 through downtown, which is going to be…

Fun. [Laughing] … very difficult for a while. But it will be really good for the Baylor-Waco connection when it’s finished because they’re going to realign those overpasses, making them much more pedestrian friendly. They’re going to have some light features and things that you’ve probably heard about. And I think that will make the connection between Baylor and downtown that much better. And, I think you’re going to see downtown continue to redevelop at even a greater pace. Hopefully we’re going to see some big buildings with lots of offices in them in the near future.

So, I’m excited about what Dr. Livingstone has planned for Baylor. I think she is proving herself to be a great hire, and look forward to continuing to work together with the university. It’s just really fun to see this stuff happen in your town that you’ve been waiting all this time saying, “Look at the potential.” And now, people are starting to see the potential.

IN YOU?

One. [Laughing]

IS THAT A FAMILY-IMPOSED RESTRICTION?

Yeah. Both self, and family. And to be fair to my brother, too. We have lots of things that we need to do in our businesses, and we’re working hard on those things. But it’s hard for me to focus on those things right now. And so, yeah, I think two more years. There are lots of other qualified people who are interested in doing the job, and I’ll be happy to see who takes it next. But that’s two years from now. We’ve still got time to get some things done.

And, we didn’t talk about this, but we have the IronMan 70.3, which is the half-distance IronMan triathlon, which is going to be in Waco for the next five years. So that’s a big deal. And it brings in a lot of people that will see this opportunity. That, in and of itself, will be a catalyst. People are starting to see Waco as sort of a hub for outdoor and athletic activities. And I mean nobody has anything like Cameron Park. It’s an amazing asset. People in Waco have been talking about it for years, but people outside are starting to finally understand.

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27

Return On INVESTMENT HOW BAYLOR IS FUNDING PROGRAMS TO HELP REIMAGINE WACO Story by Lisa Asher

At first glance, all you can see is a group of younger people swarming a grassy lot like a colony of busy ants. Three girls are carrying a ladder, which almost nicks a bemused guy, who ducks just in time. Four or five people are carrying paint cans, while others unload tarps and paint rollers from a white pickup truck. As the crowd parts momentarily, you can glimpse a modest, wood-planked house with peeling paint and a broken screen door.

“Okay, everyone,” yells a guy in a bright-green T-shirt, gesturing to his left. “This group get started on scraping, and the rest of you lay down tarps and start working on the door.”

It’s a familiar scene every spring and fall around Waco. For more than thirty years, thousands of Baylor students have participated in Steppin’ Out, a day of service when students go into the Waco and surrounding communities to serve a variety of needs — painting, garbage collecting, lawn work, minor construction projects — for local businesses, families, and individuals.

In addition to Steppin’ Out, students work within the community through philanthropic service projects sponsored by sororities and fraternities, through their churches, and in classroom projects. From a larger standpoint, the university has spearheaded programs like the BRIC (Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative) and McLane Stadium, both efforts that clearly benefit Central Texas residents and Baylor alike.

The disparity between the Waco community and Baylor can, at times, seem vast. According to 2016 census data, the median household income in Waco was $37,722, more than $20,000 below the state average. In contrast, the current cost of yearly tuition at Baylor is upwards of $40,000, and while the vast majority of students receive some kind of financial aid, there is a lingering perception of privileged students living in a less-advantaged city.

So what tangible steps has the university, as an institution, taken to benefit the community in what has sometimes been a contentious town-gown relationship with Waco?

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Anchor LEG Ashley Bean Thornton is, simply put, an expert on all things Waco, although she will laughingly deny that assertion. She is involved in literally dozens of Baylor/Waco projects, including writing a blog, Act Locally Waco; recording a weekly local community events spot on KWBU, the Baylor-sponsored NPR station; and leading weekend tours highlighting various areas around the city.

Even her job at Baylor is focused on Waco.

As the senior director of informed engagement and continuous improvement, a title she dryly admits is a mouthful, Thornton is part of Baylor’s newly formed Office of External Affairs, which is tasked with supporting the informed engagement initiative found in Baylor’s Pro Futuris five-year plan. While the office might be relatively new, the idea behind it has been growing and changing for some time.

In 2016, Thornton formed a committee she called the Anchor Institution Group, a term she adapted from the idea that universities, hospitals, and other core businesses are the institutions that stay in a community when other smaller businesses leave. The committee was comprised of top Baylor and Waco leaders, including the Baylor president and provost and Waco’s mayor and city manager.

At the first meeting, Thornton says, she drew a continuum line for how universities and towns work together. “On one end of the continuum is outright conflict, denoting universities and their home towns that don’t get along at all,” Thornton explains. “If you move down to the middle of that line, you get to the point of a school and a town working together on things that are important to both of them, and I think that’s at least as far as Baylor and the community are.”

But the key question, Thornton says, is what is beyond that point? “Would it be possible for us, as an anchor institution, and the City of Waco to work together strategically on issues that would be to the benefit of both of us? That’s kind of what the experiment is.”

COLLABORATIVE

Effort

That “experiment” is something that President Linda Livingstone is firmly behind. “When President Livingstone came into office, she did an analysis of a lot of the administrative units across campus,” says Jason Cook, vice president for marketing and communications and chief marketing officer. “One thing that we found was that we truly did not have a home for our community relations activities. She quickly saw that we can do a better job of aligning all community relations efforts on campus.”

Cook, who is over the new External Affairs Office, is quick to note that there are numerous individual community projects coming out of a variety of schools and offices on the Baylor campus. What the university is striving to do, Cook explains, is not to take over and manage those kinds of successful programs already in place, but instead to consolidate individual initiatives into one coordinated effort. “We have so many partnerships going on around the community—whether it be faculty, research projects, Student Life, community engagement activities—that we, as an institution, did not have a good handle on all of these touchpoints across the greater Waco area,” he says. “We need to organize it. That will allow us to look for better collaborations across campus, but that’s also going to allow us to better communicate the impact that Baylor has on the Waco community.”

Funding for this effort is part of Baylor’s operating budget, Cook says, and the university is currently searching for an associate vice president of external affairs, who will direct the work being done by Thornton and Ramona Curtis, director for community engagement and initiatives. Already, the office has established Bear to Bear, a STAAR Test tutoring program for students at J. H. Hines Elementary in the Waco ISD. Thornton says that she and Curtis want to ensure that institutional help is going out into the community in the right way. “It is possible to hurt in your desire to help,” she says. “Are we approaching nonprofits in town in a way that’s most helpful to them? Are there things we could tweak about the way our students are interacting with them that would make their life easier and probably make a better experience for our students?”

Photos courtesy of Baylor Photography 29

HUSTLE AND

Flow

Five years from now, Leman says, this effort could mean Greg Leman is also concerned about the Baylor/Waco that more than a dozen new high-tech companies have relationship, but his focus is how to help Baylor students moved to Waco and many more Baylor students are either and other Waco residents create their own opportunities. A employed by those companies or have created businesses of professor of entrepreneurship in Baylor’s Hankamer School their own. “But if you go across the footbridge to East Waco of Business, Leman also served as director of LAUNCH, and see that nothing really changed there, I would not count an arm of the BRIC that offers start-ups and established that as a full success,” he says. “You can build a superhighway businesses a variety of services, including funding between Baylor and Austin Avenue, but if there are no assistance, networking events, and executive coaching. on-ramps from East Waco or the Hispanic “Baylor was spending their own community, then it’s just going to continue money to back and cover what I the long-term, divided-city reality. And was doing at LAUNCH. That’s I’m not interested in propagating that. For a big up-front investment,” says ‘HOW DO WE everybody that has good ideas, our job is Leman, a former corporate engineer to support whatever help they need from and inventor who has been with wherever they’re starting. That’s how I’m Baylor for more than twelve years. going to measure success.”

He is now transitioning from AND MAKE his position with LAUNCH to a WACO THE CITY venture sponsored by the newly CIZEN Engagement formed collaborative StartUp THAT WE WANT For Ashley Thornton, success will also Waco. “It came out of some joint IT TO BE AND be measured by those earnest Baylor investigation by people from Baylor, NEED IT TO BE?’ students putting in their volunteer hours from city and county government, during Steppin’ Out. “By the time our from foundations, and from the students get to us, they understand Waco Chamber of Commerce,” volunteering,” she says. “But if that’s all Leman says. “Strong engagement they understand by the time they leave from the top at Baylor asked, ‘How us, then we have not educated them as citizens.” do we join forces and make Waco the city that we want It’s not just about helping a Waco neighbor paint his it to be and need it to be?’ What flowed out of that was house, she says, but also asking why he cannot afford to the realization of how entrepreneurial activity needs to paint the house himself. “How do we integrate that into our be one of the centerpieces.” transformational education so that when our students leave, For the next eighteen months, Leman will spearhead they’re citizens in the sense that they know how to work a center called The Hustle, a five-thousand-square-foot together to make this a better place?” shared office space that will be located in the Woolworth Thornton will admit that there are no easy answers to Suites at 605 Austin Avenue in downtown Waco. A that question, but she’s excited that Baylor, as an institution, business owner will be able to rent space in the center, is willing to put in the time and funding to find the receive peer-to-peer coaching, and get discounted rates on answers. “What’s so inspiring about the idea of informed things like website development and business counseling. engagement is that we’ve stated a willingness to focus some The Hustle is truly a joint effort, Leman says. energy on that,” she says. “You’re going to be a citizen According to him, the Waco Chamber has put $100,000 wherever you live. Are you going to be better at it for toward start-up costs, and the County Commissioner’s having gone to Baylor?”

Court recently voted to allocate $750,000 toward the Jason Cook echoes that sentiment. “It’s great that project. Baylor’s contributions, Leman says, include we have so many students participating in philanthropic “loaning” him to the project, along with continued efforts, working in community assistance efforts. Selfless funding for StartUp Waco. Officials expect The Hustle service is in our DNA as a Baylor family. Now, how can we to be up and running by this summer. institutionalize it when they are here as students and then take it with them? That’s the key goal.”

join forces

­The former associate editor of the Baylor Line, Lisa Asher ’89, MA ’99, is currently manager of training in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences Advising.

30

Once there lived a boy named Julian who wished to change the world. He dreamed of faraway places and how he might make them better. Julian believed in the power of his own hands to bring healing to others, and envisioned the desperate faces of those who might need him most.

One day, Julian packed his bags and left for the darkest corners of the earth. His heart swelled at the thought of all of the change he could make. But far away from home, he found that his hands did not work. He went from place to place, from one season into the next, unable to help a single person he encountered along the way.

Many days later, Julian sat at a train station in tears. An old man sat down on the bench beside Julian and asked why he was crying.

Julian said, “I left my home with a dream to save the world, only to find that my hands no longer work.”

The old man thought about it for a while, and finally asked, “What is the name of your next door neighbor?” Julian thought that was a strange question. He admitted that he did not know the name of his next door neighbor. The old man said, “Go home and start with your neighbor. Then, and only then, are you of any use to the rest of the world.”

- Burnet Cole

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POPULATION 129,193

MALES 65,206 (48.5%) STUDENTS 4,251

FEMALES

69,216 (51.5%) STUDENTS 4,410

POVERTY RATE 29%

WACO STATS Artwork by Elise King

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ETHNIC COMPOSITION 56,584 WHITE RESIDENTS (43.8%) 41,037 HISPANIC RESIDENTS (31.8%) 26,740 BLACK RESIDENTS (20.7%) 2,583 ASIAN RESIDENTS (2%) 2,012 TWO+ RESIDENTS (1.56%)

20% OF RESIDENTS ARE NATIVE SPANISH SPEAKERS

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES 54,556

AWARDED DEGREES BY WACO UNIVERSITIES IN 2015 8,661

MEDIAN AGE 28.7

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME $33,147

33

Sandtown Exactly zero square blocks remain.

Today, you’ll find Interstate 35, the Texas Ranger Museum, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, Baylor Law School, Baylor’s Mayborn Museum Complex, Grant Teaff Plaza, Baylor athletic complexes and stadiums, Lake Brazos Park, and the Waco Riverwalk. But for the most of the twentieth century, hundreds of mostly Hispanic workers made their homes here.

This community was known as Sandtown.

the mid-19th Century, after first evicting the resident Native Americans from Waco, settlers began to move in near a dogleg turn of the Brazos. They established their community here and this original point of modern settlement is actually where downtown sits today. The working class and industrial districts set up shop just off to the east — about a mile — on the banks of the Brazos. There they made a community that would last a century.

This community replaced — or, rather, absorbed — the time-old “Riverside” community of Waco, where tanners, butchers and iron shops existed. Adjacent to Riverside, along Two Street, was one of the most prosperous red-light districts in the United States. Sandtown would also absorb this area and the houses used as brothels when Waco outlawed the red-lighting – at the “urging” of the U.S. military, which was considering an army base near the city.

During the Dust Bowl, government housing projects were established just west of the railroad tracks and between 8th and 12th Street. The migrants who followed — and others not from Dust Bowl condition, but who still relocated to Waco in search of work — settled near the industrial community as well.

In

34

As these pilgrims settled along the Brazos, they began to establish a more prominent community than had previously existed. This community became known as Sandtown, probably because of the sandy soil atop the limestone west of the Brazos’s southern banks.

In Sandtown — officially recorded as the Riverside or River District — there were two of the city’s meat packing plants, several stockyards, a prominent church, a cemetery, and a gambling hall.

All in all, this collection of bustling industry and livelihood was packed into approximately 30 square blocks of Waco, according to maps of Waco from the time. Some records show Sandtown extended from Clay Avenue to where Bagby Avenue runs today. It extended from the banks of the Brazos to about Third Street. City records indicate there were 280 homes in the area. Later, as Urban Renewal programs began to quantify the areas for redevelopment, 238 of the dwellings were deemed uninhabitable.

In correspondence, city administrators and Baylor leadership regularly referred to it as a “slum.”

To many, the area remembered as Sandtown was known as “the inner” of this working-class district, and, according to former residents, much of Sandtown’s “roads” were

anything but. The now-gone River Street was a spine that connected the community — missing a block here and there, picking up a few blocks later. Much of the southeastern roads of Sandtown were paved and carried names of former U.S. Presidents — Jefferson, Washington, Jackson. But in Sandtown, perhaps because it was officially designated a commercial zone, the streets were not properly maintained by the city.

Especially in the poorest section of the neighborhoods.

“It was a divot down and there was the street,” said Leonard Englander, former owner of Sunbright Waste Paper Company, which his family owned and operated in Sandtown for generations. “And it was Sandtown.

It was sand. When it rained, it was muddy. Reminds you, I guess, of an old Western town that had the muddirt streets.”

Regardless of Sandtown’s yards and industry and buildings, the community — like any community — was made of people.

Robert Gamboa, who lived at 1100 S. First St. — where the Texas Sports Hall of Fame stands today — still fondly recalls his childhood in the small community. “[Sandtown] was an older part of Waco, sure,” Gamboa said. “But the families were decent, hard-working

families. Struggling to build their families and to provide. Families (who lived in Sandtown) worked in all areas of Waco.”

While there were grocery stores — like Jesse Serrano’s parent’s mom-and-pop store at Clay Avenue and First Street — and packing plants and factories in Sandtown, this did not limit the people of Sandtown. The entire city was knit together with a first-rate trolley system, which provided cheap, dependable transportation for all of Waco’s citizens. he electric rail stretched from the east side of Baylor’s campus, all the way down the southern edge of Sandtown, through downtown and to the other side of Waco. It effectively connected one side of the city to the other.

“Some of the guys used to work for the Roosevelt Hotel (in downtown Waco), some were bus boys, some were soda-water company loaders,” Serrano said.

He recalls many Sandtown residents working as cotton-pickers and farmhands. Truck drivers, he said, would meet these workers in front of his parent’s store, and shuttle them out to farms in the rolling hills surrounding Waco.

“They had regular jobs,” Gamboa said. “Not making large fortunes, but enough to provide for the family. And, like I say, those who could ultimately save money and get out, they did.”

But Sandtown also provided many jobs internally in the community.

Englander’s family business, Sunbright Waste Paper Company, moved into the heart of Sandtown in 1926, where it remained until the uprooting of the community in the late ‘70s. Sunbright was relocated to Waco’s industrial district during the latter part of urban renewal.

“This used to be a viable business that in one way supported the people who lived in Sandtown,” Englander said, a terse tone still evident in his voice.

O

n top of these businesses, many residents operated what we now called food trucks around the courthouse square, “selling foods and goodies, like tamales and tacos.”

But it wasn’t always work in Sandtown, there was an annual carnival, makeshift games of baseball and soccer and war among the kids. They would visit the Fox Theater. And, because there were no parks in Sandtown, they played in the First Street Cemetery – the center of the community many days.

T

35

But Abner McCall knew the ability for travelers to “drive by the front porch” of Baylor would only increase the university’s prominence and prestige.

With an up-front and personal position on one of the nation’s most major highways, McCall saw possibility and potential. ooking in the maps of the Texas Collection, one can see how between 1963 and 1964, the direction of I-35 drastically changes from going around Waco — and virtually disturbing no one — to cutting straight through her middle ground — over dozens and dozens of houses, churches and businesses.

The highway missed both Baylor and the Waco Stadium by mere yards.

Interstate 35 was a mark on the board for the city of Waco that also brought huge benefits for Baylor.

A year after the completion of I-35, the city of Waco chose to connect the west part of River Street (the section that stopped shy of Sandtown) with her eastern part, which connected directly onto Highway 77. Once these two pieces connected, it allowed a seamless transition between downtown and Highway 77. The new street was named Riverside Street–in honor of the original community term–even as it eliminated approximately a third of the Sandtown community on her northern-most side.

Riverside Street was eventually renamed University Parks Drive in the mid-70s and Baylor expanded all the way up to the banks of the river with — at first — an ecology building and later a collection that would include the Mayborn Museum, Baylor Law School, the Ferrell Center and many other smaller buildings.

But once, not so long ago, there stood a community called Sandtown.

L

irst Street Cemetery was eventually relocated due to the construction of I-35, though many rumors claim it was done shoddily — leaving behind many graves and only moving the headstones.

Church was also a large part of life in Sandtown. The neighborhood housed an Assembly of God church, but since most residents of Sandtown were Catholic, they traversed to St. Francis on the Brazos or across town to other churches.

The community aspect of Sandtown was strong.

“It was just a big, friendly community that everybody knew everybody,” said Alice Rodriquez, a neighbor and friend Gamboa grew up with in Sandtown. “If we got hurt, if we fell down, the neighbors knew who we belonged to.”

Gamboa echoed this sentiment.

“Everyone knew everyone. Everyone cared for everyone. Everyone shared. And I think, looking back now after my adult life, is that most everyone was in the same economic status, if you will. Those that were far poorer, people sort of helped in what little way that everyone could,” he said.

When construction of I-35 began on the south end of Waco in 1958, the initial plans show it would swing around the city, bypassing Waco to her east and avoiding the displacement of thousands of residents. Up until 1963, projections indicated the new highway would follow the path of where Loop 343 to Highway 6 now runs. Even today, that area is vastly pasture land with a few growing subdivisions.

F

Story by Jonathon Platt, Photos Courtesy of The Texas Collection

36

There is a Tree that stretches out from deep within the heart of the Everafter.

With roots that swirl and twist into dampened soil, it forms a bridge between caverns of time and space.

These roots have been woven into the very essence of all I have encountered along the way.

What began in a Garden held the King of Kings, and it will soon be a Table for a banqueting feast when we gather at the Wedding in the Everafter.

These branches, these roots, have sustained our searching feet, and offered an enduring perch to weary pilgrims as they follow the narrow way from this world into the one to come.

No matter how far from Home we go, we find ourselves in shade.

- Sarah Rogers

37

All across Waco, Baylor students and alumni are working together to make a difference in the community.

Organizations like Communities in Schools provide life skill classes, counseling, advocacy, and tutoring to students in Waco’s urban areas. As of 2017, there are five Waco ISD schools in need of community help to increase performance so they can meet state regulations. Communities in Schools is one of the many non-profits where Baylor Alumni and current students volunteer to help the up-and-coming generation meet those requirements. Following the footsteps of Baylor Alumni, many students are beginning to step out and positively influence the community as Waco flourishes with the help of new businesses and tourists.

WACO

NON-PROFITS

Dr. Kathy Krey (’99 BBA in Marketing, ’05 MA in Sociology, ’08 PhD in Sociology), Director 4.3 million people in Texas (Almost 48,000 people in McLennan County) might not have access to food tonight. Through coordination and collaboration, the Texas Hunger Initiative is helping organizations change that. “There are a lot of great people and organizations doing great work across the country,” Krey said, “We’re bringing them together and supporting them with the knowledge and expertise at Baylor to make their work more efficient and effective.” Their work is paying off. Compared to 2008-2009, the school year THI started, 100 million more meals were served to children in Texas in 2015-2016.

Waco Habitat for Humanity 220 N 11th St

HA B ITAT FOR HUMANIT Y Brenda Shuttlesworth (’86) Executive Director Waco Habitat for Humanity partners with Baylor Students to eliminate substandard and poverty housing in Waco. Through new home construction and home repairs, Habitat for Humanity empowers residents to renew their neighborhoods and enhance their quality of life. Their ReStore facility recycles materials to provide resources at greatly reduced prices for the community. ReStore diverts thousands of pounds of waste into useful materials that help make a difference for those in need.

U N BOU N D Natalie Garnett (’12) Assistant National Director Garnett said, “everyone has a need for friendships and a need for belonging and if [they] don’t get that in a healthy way, [they will] find it in an unhealthy way.” Garnett, along with Baylor student volunteers, works to provide for those needs and ensure our community is healthy and safe. UnBound’s mission is to activate local communities to fight human trafficking through prevention, professional training, and survivor advocacy. They empower local youth through citywide outreaches and the help of donors across the nation.

MI SSION WACO, MISSION WOR LD IN C .

Jimmy Dorrell (’72) Executive Director and President, Co-Founder Janet Dorrell (’80) Mission World and Poverty Simulation Director and Co-founder

505 N. 20th St. Waco, Tx 76707 254-754-0385 x 134

Texas Hunger Initiative One Bear Place #97320 Waco, Texas 76798

Physical 811 Washington Ave. Waco, Texas 76701

BAYLOR U N IV E R SIT Y ’S T E XAS HU N GE R IN IT IATI V E

1315 N 15th St. Waco, Tx 76707

Mission Waco began with the purchase of a deteriorating house in the middle of North Waco. When the Dorrell’s first started Mission Waco their goal was to live among the poor and bring “good news” to those in the area. Now, Mission Waco’s program to empower the poor and marginalized through relationships with the middle-class has created a hands-on experience for Baylor students to serve the community. Through the service of over 1700 volunteers Mission Waco is able to address systemic issues that disempower the poor and serve Waco as well as the World.

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Dr. Kerry Burkley (’97) Program Director “We’ve got an issue that is all around us and we fear that it’s happening in this area,” Burkley said. Violence and abuse is far too common in the homes of men, women, and children.

The local Child Advocacy Center, however, responds to suspected sexual and physical abuse through medical examinations, case reviews, videotaped interviews, and partner agencies.

Through the spread of community awareness, the Advocacy Center has been able to identify cases and help families all over Waco. Burkley said, “[they] are committed to take all the time [they] need to make sure they get the services” children need.

Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children 2323 Columbus Ave Waco, Tx 76701

COM M U N IT IE S IN SC HOOLS Aaron Mize (’14) Chief Strategy Officer

Communities in Schools of the Heart of Texas 1001 Washington Ave Waco, Tx 76701

The mission of Communities in Schools of the Heart of Texas is to surround students with the support and tools useful for a successful life.

Mize said, Communities in Schools is “able to come into the schools and provide a level of support that teachers don’t always have time for.” As Baylor’s influence in Waco grows, Mize has seen areas where their knowledge and skills can propel the generations to come. Every child needs and deserves personal, healthy relationships that will allow them to grow and experience success. Communities in Schools seeks to serve student’s personal needs through program directors, volunteers, and Baylor alum.

JE SU S SA ID LOV E Brett (’98) and Emily (’99) Mills, Founder and CEO Brett Mills said, “The more you’re around [people who need Jesus], the more you realize it’s not ‘them’ and ‘us’. We’re all just us.” This philosophy is foundation of Jesus Said Love’s three-part method: go, love, connect.

Jesus Said Love builds relationships with local strip club employees to connect them to community. With no strings attached they are able to provide community and spiritual resources. Founded by Brett and Emily Mills in 2003, Jesus Said Love has grown their influence in seven cities across Texas and is continuing to grow.

Jesus Said Love PO Box 523 Waco, TX 76703 (254) 300-7658

A DVO C ACY CENTER F O R C RI ME VICT IMS A N D C HI L D REN

Anna Futral (’08) Executive Director CASA is committed to providing a trained volunteer and a Court Appointed Special Advocate, for every abused and neglected child. Their vision is to see every abused and neglected child in the foster care system. Futral’s experience as a foster parent propelled CASA’s vision and goal and they now advocate for almost 200 kids annually. There are nearly 600 children in the McLennan County Foster care system and many more hopefully as students and alum work to advocate on behalf of local children.

ANIM A L BIR T H CON T R OL C LIN IC Carrie Kuehl (’94) Executive Director

The Animal Birth Control Clinic serves the community through the life of animals. They provide access to affordable spay/neuter and healthy preventative pet services. Kuehl said their mission is to “reduce the numbers of stray and euthanized animals.” Often families buy animals when they cannot afford to and the Animal Birth Control Clinic wants to ensure families can provide a healthy lifestyle and prevent disease for their animals.

Baylor Students volunteer to assist in any care needs and promote responsible pet ownership within the community.

3238 Clay Ave, Waco, TX 76711

CASA of McLennan County 1001 Washington Ave Waco, Tx 76701

C ASA O F MCLENNAN COUNT Y

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TRAFFICKING BOUGHT, SOLD, SAVED. On a seemingly normal night, Emily and one of her roommates went to a local club instead of the movies. There, she caught the eye of an older man who convinced her to drive back to a hotel with him. Before she knew what was going on, Emily had been drugged. She was then videotaped being raped by a series of men.

This is the brutal reality of human trafficking.

Of all the men who went to the hotel, a drug-dealer was the one who became concerned about Emily’s condition. He alerted the police, which ultimately connected Emily to Unbound, a non-profit in Waco that mobilizes churches and communities to fight against human trafficking.

Over the past four years, UnBound has spread to eight instrumental locations, ranging from Waco to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. UnBound’s long-term goals are to provide education to every school, teacher, parent and administrator in the areas surrounding its offices to keep all boys and girls safe.

Baylor alumna Natalie Garnett (‘12) is the Assistant National Director of UnBound.

While Emily’s story sounds like a horror movie, Garnett says she has heard equally disturbing trafficking cases over the years.

This year alone, the National Human Trafficking Hotline reported 4,460 human trafficking cases in the United States — with Texas ranking second–highest at 433 cases. Countless more go unidentified as Interstate 35 serves as one of the central corridors for trafficking between Mexico and the United States.

BE THEIR

$150 billion trafficking dollars flow through the US every year. In Waco, the statistics are changing. From 19 victims served in 2016 to 45 in 2017, UnBound saw their number of cases more than double as their influence in the community has continued to grow. Garnett said anti-human trafficking work is “messy” and more complex than people think. UnBound focuses on three main areas: prevention education, professional training, and survivor advocacy.

As UnBound’s outreach has expanded, they are receiving more reports of those who are at risk or have been affected by trafficking. Garnett said when the police informed UnBound of Emily’s case, they took necessary measures to nurture and care for her with the help of local counseling centers and hospitals. UnBound’s counselors soon realized that the majority of trafficking cases were going unheard because counseling centers and businesses in Waco did not have the proper training to identify trafficking victims, Garnett said.

To mobilize and spread awareness, UnBound joined hands with local businesses to strengthen and focus its efforts.

VOICE

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In 2015, UnBound formed the Heart of Texas Human Trafficking Coalition.

The HTHTC was not designed to create a new organization, but to bring local anti-trafficking efforts together.

Leading the efforts of the coalition, UnBound works with the help of local law enforcement, the Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children, District Attorney, District Judge, and Communities in Schools, to unify and educate each organization to help use their resources most effectively.

into a basement. Though that does happen, Garnett said, it’s not always that intense; sexual abuse can occur in more stable situations as well.

According to Aaron Mize, (‘14) Chief Strategy Officer for Waco Communities in Schools (CIS), the organization’s work in trafficking prevention is “unique.” When forming the HTHTC, UnBound applied for a federal grant to help stretch their resources and work more effectively in the local school districts. Mize acts as UnBound’s fiscal agent to oversee grant functions and keep goals pointed and attainable.

The grooming process begins once the trafficker has targeted his or her victim. Through casual conversations, a trafficker will begin to gain information, exposing areas of need in their life. The information gained allows the trafficker to fill a need in the victim’s life, making the victim dependent on them in some way. Once they meet the need, the trafficker creates more time to be alone with the victim, establishing himself as a major role in the victim’s life. Soon the abuse begins and the victim is threatened to pay back the trafficker.

Communities in Schools currently exist within 19 at-risk schools in McLennan County, from Waco ISD to Mexia ISD. Mize said CIS has social workers and social service professionals stationed on campuses to identify and counsel students who are at-risk for trafficking. CIS uses Texas Education Funding criteria to identify “at-risk” schools. These at-risk schools usually have high concentrations of students from low-income families, with students who range from not meeting reading level expectations and not advancing from one grade to the next, to teen pregnancy and English proficiency problems — making them especially vulnerable to traffickers.

Though these indicators help recognize some of the signs of trafficking, “trafficking isn’t as clearcut as we’d like it to be,” Garnett said.

Garnett said people want to imagine trafficking as the story of the girl next door who is kidnapped and dragged

Investigator Kandy Knowles of the Baylor University Police Department said trafficking is typically a gradual process based around grooming tactics.

Traffickers are not always strangers.

It could be someone the victim knows.

Trafficking can start from receiving a single compliment online.

UnBound wants to educate students, as well as the families and faculty impacting them, to recognize indicators and be aware of predators on social media.

“More than anything we need to engage with youth in our city,” Garnett said.

NOT IN MY CITY.

By Britain Seago *Names and identifying details have been changed to protect survivors.

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Artwork by Sarah Dyer

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Passage

What do we bring, helpless, at birth?

What are we worth?

We come with family, a history, a past, stories that last.

What do we leave, going our way at end of day?

The stories we lived, when young, then old, the stories we told.

‑ Jan Epton Seale

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A Foundation For Collaboration Over the course of its history in Waco, Texas, Baylor University has gained a reputation as existing within its own social, political, and economic world known as the “Baylor bubble.”

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t times it can seem that the relationship between Waco citizens and Baylor has been a coexistence, rather than a partnership.

However, since 1959, there has been at least one thread that has continued to strengthen the bond between the city and the school in that bubble: the Baylor/Waco Foundation. Their little-known legacy is as impressive as it is important as a playbook for future collaboration.

In the late 1950s, a convergence of shared goals and incentives led to the creation of the Baylor/Waco Foundation, an organization formed by Waco business leaders who aimed to jumpstart the development of Baylor in order to grow the Waco economy.

Their first goal was simple, yet monumental from a historical perspective. The group planned to coordinate with the city of Waco to purchase large swaths of residential land northeast of 5th street and donate it to Baylor. Thanks to a federally incentivized program, the city of Waco had the ability to purchase the lower income residential neighborhoods between Baylor campus and the Brazos River through the Urban Renewal Agency.

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“Gone will be the dreary rows of unpainted, substandard houses, which made the area a blight upon the city of Waco,” read one 1961 Waco Tribune-Herald article describing the effort.

“Where many squalid dwellings once stood as an eye-sore, there will be clusters of gleaming, efficient new buildings in a vast modern educational complex.”

As the city of Waco purchased the property and relocated entire neighborhoods of people, local business leaders gathered together through the Baylor/Waco Foundation with a goal to raise more than $100,000 per year to purchase the property from the city, a sum equivalent to more than $800,000 per year today. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, hundreds of volunteers and some of the biggest names in the Waco business scene worked together to raise the necessary funding to purchase the property.

According to a Waco News-Tribune article from 1963, more than 300 people attended a luncheon and 175 workers volunteered to call and visit potential contributors to the campaign. By 1966, the group’s efforts were coming to fruition.

An ad in the News-Tribune read: “If you happen to want evidence that Waco is a progressive city of enlightened people, take a look just east of Third Street on the Baylor Campus.

You’ll find your proof.”

The final results of the campaign are remarkable. More than 200 acres of land were donated to Baylor University from the Baylor/Waco Foundation. Today, this land is home to the Ferrell Center, Baylor Ballpark, Baylor Marina, the Baylor Sciences Building, the Sheila and Walter Umphrey Law Center, Marrs McLean Science Building, Moody Memorial Library, and at least 25 other buildings.

Thanks to the early work of the Baylor/Waco Foundation, Waco citizens and businesses are responsible for approximately 20 percent of Baylor’s total current campus area. It is a truly extraordinary example of cooperation between the citizens of Waco and Baylor.

s

Extending the legacy

ince its initial successes, the Baylor/Waco Foundation has continued to fund projects that benefit both the university and the citizens of Waco, including funding the development of Baylor Marina, paving the Ferrell Center parking lot and installing the first lights at Ferrell Field so that Waco citizens would be able to enjoy a baseball game after work. The goal has always remained focused on funding projects that benefit both Waco and Baylor.

The more recent projects are slightly more modest, although still important. Among many other things, the foundation funded the walkways at the Waco Mammoth site, donated to exhibits at the Mayborn Museum and created an endowed scholarship fund to support one Waco-area high school graduate each year. The endowment is now over $100,000 and the most recent recipient received $5,700.

“We love Baylor, and we love Waco,” said Dan Ingham, current Baylor/Waco Foundation president. Ingham is a vice president of a local bank and also serves as the radio voice for Baylor softball and a cohost for Baylor Gameday on Waco’s KWTX TV station. “I’ve lived in Waco for 15 years, and I’ve seen that spirit of cooperation grow. It is fun to be a part of that now, too.”

As an Oklahoma State University graduate, Ingham represents a particularly special group of advocates that recognize the importance of a synergistic partnership between Baylor and Waco.

“I’m proud of getting a group of folks together to raise money that aren’t necessarily in the same line of business,” Ingham said. “The last two presidents were not even Baylor grads, but they care enough about Baylor and Waco that they wanted to do something.”

Today, the foundation is no longer supported by hundreds of volunteers as it was in the 1960s, but it still consists of a core group of business leaders who choose and oversee the implementation of projects.

At some point in the group’s history, Baylor took on a more active role in cultivating the foundation and organizing its meetings and events. But over the past year, Baylor has transitioned away from a more direct role, giving the organization an opportunity to get back to their roots as a more independent organization.

“Everything that we do, we are trying to emphasize the unity of Baylor University and Waco, Texas,” said Carroll Fitzgerald (’76), a Waco business owner and former Baylor/ Waco Foundation president.

“I’ve lived in Waco for 15 years, and I’ve seen that spirit of cooperation grow. It is fun to be a part of that now, too.”

Fitzgerald has been involved with the foundation since the early 1990s and seen the foundation and the university change significantly over the years.

“When I served the first time, the funds that we raised were significant, but today they are very insignificant because of the nature of the fundraising that Baylor does and the projects they do,” Fitzgerald said. “When you raise $100,000 per year, it is hard to compete with a project that raises $100 million for the business school or $260 million for the stadium … We have to really specialize and find something that is really needed.”

In Fitzgerald’s most recent turn as president, he oversaw a multi-year commitment to contribute $250,000 to Baylor athletics for infrastructure needs as well as contributions to the Doris Miller Memorial and the Baylor Autism Resource Clinic. The choice of projects is facilitated by word of mouth, grant applications and a continued collaboration with Baylor to discover needed projects.

The foundation relies on several regular donors in addition to hosting occasional fundraisers, including a Dr Pepper Hour for Waco business leaders.

“I donate to show my support for what the foundation is trying to accomplish,” said Earl Patrick (’66), a long-time donor both individually and professionally as the president of Coldwell Bank Jim Stewart Realtors. “If it is something worth doing as a business, then it is worth doing as an individual, and the Baylor/Waco Foundation is working on projects that wouldn’t get done otherwise.”

When there is the right convergence of factors and the necessary foresight, then there are opportunities for Waco and Baylor leaders to circumvent the Baylor bubble and work cooperatively for mutually beneficial initiatives with a lasting impact. Although it will be hard to top their founders’ efforts from 60 years ago, the Baylor/Waco Foundation aims to be the navigators for those special projects as they deliver a familiar message.

“Whatever is good for Waco is good for Baylor, and whatever is good for Baylor is good for Waco,” Fitzgerald said. “It is a pretty easy sales pitch once you get in front of the right person.”

Story by Luke Blount, Photos Courtesy of The Texas Collection 45

THE

TOWERS OF BAYLOR

Eugene W. Baker Baylor University Historian Emeritus 46

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lmost from their moment of completion, the towers atop Baylor’s first two structures became iconic symbols of the University. Designed as unique architectural features of Main Building (1886) and Georgia Burleson Hall (1887), the black slated roofs stretched upward toward the skies as if to symbolically suggest a symbiotic relationship between the teaching of earthly knowledge and an ultimate heavenly purpose.

During the early years of the 20th century, renderings of the towers were regularly printed on student recruitment materials and various school publications. The towers seemed to excite the imagination and often were the catalyst for the creation of poetry. Verses written by both students and faculty frequently referenced the towers in glowing and endearing terms, and lyrics to Baylor-related music often focused on the towers. At the cornerstone laying of the Carroll Science Hall on March 7, 1902, the Baylor Glee Club sang a song especially written for the occasion in which the concluding stanza alluded to the towers “Enfolded by God’s kindly skies.”

An “Ode to the Alma Mater” published in the Lariat on June 18, 1904, referenced the perpetual gleam of the towers. A song entitled “Baylor,” which was written by ministerial student J. C. Daniel in 1905, expressed “boundless love” to the towers. The 1909 Round Up featured the spires silhouetted on its opening flyleaf, and later, a new publication introduced to the Baylor family was named the “Baylor Towers — A Magazine of University Life.”

With such devotion-like attention given to the towers it was only natural for students to be disturbed when an owl took up residence in the cupola of Main Building in 1914. Whether it was fear of the bird desecrating the towers or concern of the potential danger it might pose to students on the walkways below is not known, but the feathered friend was the talk of the campus until captured and made the mascot of a boarding house.

On May 4, 1931, Samuel Palmer Brooks, president of the university since 1902, lay dying at his home near the campus, he made one final request. He asked those surrounding his bed to “Lift me up, lift me up and let me see the towers of Baylor once more.”

While some attached an ethereal reverence to the towers, they were not immune from the boisterous spirit evidenced in song, yells and colors among the various classes. From freshmen to seniors, each class continually attempted to outshine the others in myriad competitive events that ranged from athletics to forensics. This class pride was regularly exhibited by painting the year of expected graduation on various objects. Particularly popular was the university bell stationed between Main Building and Carroll Science Hall.

For students with braver natures and little concern for consequences of demerits or expulsion, however, the “sacred” towers proved to be the choice of backdrops. What better place for recognition than black slated rooftops adorned with large white numerals that identified a particular class? Although ascending unseen to the heights of the three-story buildings was certainly dangerous, where there was a will, there was a way — and once the dam was broached, the flood of paint rushed in.

Practically all the towers eventually fell victim to the class-spirit brush. Even so, it was not just the “tagging” that drew attention and adulation, it was the location of the graffiti. Every class wanted its identifying year placed at the highest level regardless of the difficulty of accomplishing the task or if another class year had to be blotted out to do so. Fortunately, no major accidents occurred in the engagement of these shenanigans, or at least none are preserved in official university records.

Over the years, although the acquisition of new acreage provided space for the erection of additional buildings, the towers of Main Building and Burleson Hall remained the lofty focal points of the campus. After all, they had become the generally accepted trademark for institutional publications. Furthermore, their historic status and unique appearance bathed all university life in the waters of yesteryear and they stood tall and vigilant to face the challenges of tomorrow. That is, until May 11, 1953! n that day, a massive tornado struck downtown Waco causing 114 deaths and injuring nearly 600 people. Heretofore, according to Huaco Indian folklore, the area was “tornadoproof” because of its location. That myth was swiftly demolished by the horrific winds as were more than 600 houses, 1,000 other structures and 2,000 vehicles.

Although the Baylor campus did not fall victim to any significant level of destruction, an examination of the towers atop the university’s first two edifices revealed that the rushing gusts of wind had substantially weakened them.

Construction engineers, therefore, recommended their removal.

Baylor President W. R. White, cognizant of the emotional attachment students and alumni had for the towers, explored possibilities for strengthening them so that they could remain in place. His efforts proved fruitless, however, and within a few weeks their elimination from the Baylor scene began. As the shearing off of the towers progressed, Dr. White lamented “Although the towers have been an inspiration to us as their fingers in the sky pointed to even higher accomplishments for Baylor students and we hate to lose them, we dare not sacrifice safety for the sake of sentiment.”

Over the next couple of decades, various Baylor constituent groups debated the appropriateness and feasibility of replacing the university’s first two buildings with more modern facilities. The Board of Trustees investigated such a possibility and concluded in July 1973 to bring new life to Burleson Quadrangle by renovating the buildings instead of erecting new ones. A key component of this action was the replacement of the old towers with similar ones of lighter material.

The pronouncement was widely applauded and construction began the following spring on the return of the towers along with the development of the adjoining Draper Academic Building. By the summer of 1975, the skyline of the central core of the campus began to rise anew.

O

Once more, the sentiment penned some 50 years earlier by longtime administrator Mrs. Lily Russell burst forth onto the hearts and minds of the Baylor family: I saw the towers

Pointing ever to the sky;

I hoped that other people,

Who looked as they passed by, Were by them thus inspired, To live as heartily as I.

Among the hundreds of symbols associated with Baylor University down the years, perhaps the most distinguishable are the towers of the institution’s first two buildings. With the exception of a brief 22-year hiatus, their captivating presence in the historical center of the campus have served as compelling and persuasive examples of the Baylor spirit striving upward toward unprecedented heights of integrity, intensity, and imagination.

No doubt, for Baylorites of yesteryear, today and tomorrow, the towers will continually represent what is good and true about the university, as well as those who walk its sacred halls preparing to make a living and make a life while making a difference in the world about them.

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YOU EVER WONDER WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN? ON THAT DAY IN 1953, THE ARC OF THIS CITY CHANGED FOREVER .

THE HEAVENS RIPPED OPEN AND SAID, “EVERYTHING YOU’VE BUILT MUST BE REBUILT .

EVERYTHING YOU’VE PLANNED MUST BE TOSSED ASIDE . EVERYTHING YOU’VE DREAMED MUST BE TRANSFORMED INTO SOMETHING NEW . ” NOT EVERYONE COMES BACK FROM A STORM LIKE THAT .

BUT HERE WE ARE .

Photo Courtesy of The Texas Collection

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In the furthest seat of the furthest row, she sits.

Before the sun, she rose.

And now, she rides.

She is the heartbeat, and she knows it. Not with her mind. But with her hands, with her back, with her feet. She rests her eyes, which daily see what only sees through her. Yet, she knows.

The highway reaches overhead, a portal echoing the sounds of entrance and exit. She counts.

One. Two. Three. Four. Just five seconds and she’s traversed a universe.

The bus jumps and sends the seats creaking, the loudest voices on the voyage. It isn’t the River Styx, but still, it’s a passage from world to world.

In both spheres, there is life. There is pride for what she’s made with her body and what she’s crafted with her heart. She forges family on the east and another kind on the south, and she is more alive because of it.

In both spheres, there is love. Of person, of place. Although they’re at least 18, she calls the students her “babies,” and she cares for them as she cares for her own.

She scratches at something in the black fibers of her uniform. It’s difficult to catch every stain.

They aren’t her oldest pair of pants, but they don’t look new. Then again, nothing ever does after its first shift.

In both spheres, there is labor. Work marks her brow and sets her shoulders. Home strains her heart and fatigues her mind. But in each place, she is strength and grace. An agent of order.

When she finally arrives, she will exit the green chariot, foot planting on earth that is just as much hers as the land she just left. The ground will swell with joy at her return. The air will rush to greet her lungs.

Many days are hard. They are long. They are unkind. Yet there is a bridge between campus and the city, and she will take it daily. It can’t be walked. It can’t be driven. It can’t be ridden. It is only crossed, moment by moment.

ROUTE 7 – EAST WACO

By Rae Jefferson

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How Far-Flung Jungles, Rare Bugs, and Tragedy Have Shaped the Work of Baylor Art Lecturer Greg Lewallen

Euchroma gigantea

By Craig Cunningham

Rolled up in the back of his closet

was a piece that carried so much emotional weight that Greg Lewallen couldn’t bring himself to finish it for over two years.

He knew that unrolling the canvas he had started would release a flood of emotion he wasn’t ready to face. He couldn’t yet bring himself to tell the tragic story of Maricela Ponari, or face the guilt he had been harboring in his soul.

Now, he’s ready. He wants the world to know what happened.

But to understand this story, you have to go back to Waco in the 1960s, when the Lewallen brothers hounded the local creeks and forests capturing bugs, turtles, lizards, and snakes. Their fascination with cataloging reptiles and bugs led them into a youth engagement program at Baylor’s Strecker Museum, where they were able to work in close proximity with Baylor biology students and go on select expeditions.

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By the time they graduated from high school, Greg and Rodney had built one of the largest private collection of specimens in Texas. Greg describes their family garage as being lined with endless shelves of creatures floating in jars of formaldehyde. Sometimes they daydreamed about traveling into the wildest jungles of the world to capture bugs and reptiles.

“My dad worked at the cement plant at the time, Universal Atlas,” Greg said. “He would get the chemists to order carbon tetrachloride and formaldehyde. He would bring it home and give it to us so we could mix up the ratios for preservation of the specimens.”

After high school, Greg enrolled at Baylor, but soon dropped out and took a job selling tractor parts. Almost twenty years later, when he was laid off, he returned to Baylor and earned his BFA in 1998.

“We had over 10,000 species listed in our catalog and we had over 2.5 million insect specimens,” Greg said. “We were the largest insect dealer in the world that anyone knew of.”

Butterflies sold the best, followed by beetles, and rounded out by everything else the average person might crush under their shoe. The bug dealership was actually a pair of rusted railroad cars that had been welded together, mounted on a wooden frame down a dirt road off the Davis Mountain Loop. The walls of the railcars were lined with drawers housing their inventory, and there was still enough room for offices for Greg and Rodney. Every week, they processed customer orders and drove the twenty miles to the local post office, shipping specimens all around the globe.

He had been accepted to grad school, but something felt off, like he was ignoring the true calling on his life.

The boyhood dream of traipsing through creeks and forests with his brother still nagged at him. When an opportunity unexpectedly presented itself for them to purchase an insect shipping business in the mountains outside Fort Davis, he and Rodney leapt. They dropped everything and moved to southwest Texas, becoming professional bug dealers.

In his free time, Greg sketched the bugs he found most interesting, and the ones that reminded him of the people he had met along the way.

If that sounds odd, here’s how it works: someone collects desirable and rare specimens of bugs, stores them, catalogs them, and then ships them to collectors around the world. The more rare the bug, the more valuable.

They published catalogs of their inventory and shipped them to museums, universities, researchers, and private collectors who might like to buy them. At the height of their business, Greg and Rodney possessed over 2.5 million bugs for sale.

To increase their inventory of rare specimens, the brothers traveled around the world. Instead of staying in hotels, they camped in the jungle or met locals who invited them to sleep in their huts, sometimes for weeks. At night, Greg turned on a generator that powered a light, drawing massive amounts of bugs (and curious natives) to a white sheet he hung between trees. When their targeted bug showed up, Greg captured it for the collection. They stayed in the jungle for weeks at a time, sleeping in hammocks, paying drivers to move them from location to location, and following tips from locals about where specific bugs might be found. After years of wandering the jungles, the Lewallen brothers had built a world-renowned collection, with specimens envied by the most prestigious institutions in the world. Their travels took them to Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, French Guinea, Cameroon, Zambia, Serbia, Montenegro, Scotland, France . . .

Yes. 2.5 million bugs.

Some of those bugs, like Euchroma gigantea, were collected in Venezuela, at Maricela’s house. Back then, she was just a ten-year-old kid.

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On his third expedition to Venezuela,

Greg stayed with the Ponari family. They lived in a remote part of the jungle. As soon as the jeep drove up, he knew it was a perfect basecamp to explore that area and collect.

“There’s no walls. It’s just a thatched roof, with poles holding it up, hammocks all slung up,” Greg said, recalling the Ponari’s house. “But they had electricity. They had this one unit that had several outlets and multi-outlet things plugged in. Wires going everywhere. They were watching television.

They had a VCR and they were watching Rambo: First Blood. It was surreal.”

The expeditions to Venezuela stacked up over the years, and Greg built a meaningful relationship with the family.

Greg made an instant connection with their daughter, Maricela, who was a fun and vibrant kid that loved the idea of helping a strange gringo catch bugs in the middle of the night. She bounced around the jungle pointing out the things he might have missed. Every year, Greg sent Antonio, Maricela’s father, some money to help offset any education costs for the kids.

He didn’t know that one day his generosity would become the source of his guilt.

On one trip to Venezuela, Greg caught a ride to the Ponari home in the jungle. Only when he arrived, they no longer lived in the hut where he had spent so many nights.

The family who had taken over the property said Antonio was in prison for murder. For murder? That couldn’t be right. Maybe he missed something in the language barrier.

Greg asked his driver to go to the nearest village to ask around about the family.

When they arrived, no one wanted to tell Greg what had happened. He begged people to give him details.

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“And so we got all this information, kind of in bits and pieces,” Greg said. “The more we got, the more tragic it became.”

From what Greg could gather, one night Antonio got drunk and raped Maricela.

She became pregnant, and eventually gave birth to a child with severe birth defects.

Not knowing if the child would live or die, Maricela’s mother killed the baby on the jungle floor. As brutal and horrific as that act must have been, it was not unusual in their subculture. But word spread to the local authorities, who tracked down the family and demanded someone take the blame for murder. Antonio stepped forward. They took him to prison.

Greg rode along the dirt roads with rage swelling in his heart. How could anyone so badly abuse such a sweet child? How could a family he had known for so many years act with such brutality? He imagined the young girl, filled with wonder, giggling as she darted through the trees. He imagined his friend, Antonio, and what a devastating, irredeemable act he had committed against his own family. Greg seethed. His heart broke for Maricela. The rage would subside over time. But the guilt wouldn’t. He knew that the alcohol Antonio purchased was with the money he sent to the family for her schooling, and at some level he felt a share of the blame. Even now, his eyes fill with tears when he tells the story.

“The last time I had sent him money, he had some left over,” Greg said. “He bought some wine, got drunk, and then raped Maricela.

And so I felt I was a party to that. Even though my intentions were good, to help the family out and everything, to provide meals for them, feed them, clothe them.”

When Greg finally saw the Ponari family, he expected them to be distraught and fractured. Instead, they welcomed him as always and asked if he would like to go

visit Antonio in prison. They acted like nothing had changed. Greg told them no, he wouldn’t see Antonio. They insisted.

His stay was short, but something really bothered him. Maricela seemed . . . ok.

Why weren’t they more upset? Why were they so nonchalant? Why did their rage not match his own?

He would find out eventually. Just not on this trip.

Back home in Fort Davis, the dream began to splinter. Rodney was diagnosed with liver cancer, and soon after passed away.

In the wake of his death, the bug business collapsed because of family complications and headaches from Rodney’s will. All of a sudden, the boyhood dream of the Lewallen brothers had come crashing to an end. Had it all been an illusion? Had they really been paid to wander around the jungles of the world catching bugs? Was Rodney truly gone?

Greg doesn’t like to talk about the lawyers, the legalities, the debts, and the details of Rodney’s will. But suffice to say things didn’t play out how he expected, and overnight the business was in danger of losing everything. With nothing to hold on to, Greg packed his truck one morning, padlocked the railroad cars, cut his losses, and drove to his boyhood home of Waco to rebuild his life. He owned nothing but the boxes piled in the bed of his Ford Ranger.

Suddenly jobless and wondering what kind of career he could possibly pursue with a background of collecting bugs, Greg hit a low point in life. He drove to Baylor on a whim to see if any of his former professors were still teaching. The art building was

completely empty. He strolled the vacant halls admiring displays of student art. He headed for the exits, but heard someone call his name. It was the chairman of the art department, John McClanahan.

McClanahan remembered Greg from 1998, when Greg was older than the other bachelor level students by nearly two decades. McClanahan invited Greg to sit with him in his office, where he abruptly offered him a short-term teaching position.

“It totally floored me. I just sat there and looked stupid, I guess. But I said, ‘Teach what? I don’t have any experience teaching.

Teaching what? What would you want me to teach? Why would you want me to teach?’ Everything I threw out there is the reason why I shouldn’t be teaching, and he shot me down or said, ‘Oh, we can work through that.’”

Greg had no MFA, no teaching credentials, and no teaching experience.

But McClanahan remembered Greg as a student, and how he had been a natural mentor for the younger students in his classes. They worked out a plan for Greg to lecture while he pursued a masters.

After leaving to see if any of his former teachers were still at Baylor, Greg came home and told his wife that he was going to be teaching at Baylor. And that’s where he’s been since 2009.

One day Greg received a telephone call from Antonio Ponari.

Greg was still reluctant to talk to him, but Antonio was insistent. He spoke rapid fire Spanish, and Greg couldn’t keep up.

Finally, Antonio handed the phone off to a man who spoke perfect English, hoping Greg would listen. The man on the other end of the line was a Christian missionary.

Greg finally learned the full story of what had happened. After Antonio raped Maricela, this missionary had come into their village. He shared the gospel, and the entire family began following Christ.

They started the long process of working through the forgiveness and grace that would be needed to heal their wounds.

They began to be transformed by what they had experienced. When Greg arrived, they wanted him to visit Antonio in prison so that he could hear firsthand how God had forgiven him.

Greg was floored by the phone call.

All of this time, he had been gripping bitterness towards Antonio, when in reality the family had experienced transcendent forgiveness. He knew that he needed to draw Euchroma gigantea as an ode to the story, and an ode to Maricela.

Greg had always drawn the bugs he found most interesting. But one day, he decided to add a story of its capture to one of the drawings.

A fellow professor walked into the office and saw the piece and was blown away. This was something special. It felt part Indiana Jones, part Paul Theroux, and part biology experiment. Since then, Greg has continued to draw bugs, but frames them in the handwritten story of how and where they were found.

He is finally ready to share Maricela’s story with the world. That is the story that currently hangs on the walls of Martin Museum.

“Last summer, I finally said, “You know, I need to tell that story. The story needs to be told.” Because it’s a beautiful story, ultimately. All of my other bug drawings that I’ve done have been about the bug itself. But this one was different. It was the story.

About halfway through drawing that thing, the whole dynamic changed for me. And I was really anxious now to tell the story. To get to that point where I could share it with the world. Because I wanted people to know that here’s a kid who absolutely loved her father. I mean, she was always at his side, laughing and giggling, and it was like they were best friends. For that to have happened to her, how devastating that must have been.

And that’s what I kept dwelling on, and that’s why it was so hard for me to address it. But then the beauty of it comes. Romans 8, “All things work together for good, for those that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.” He didn’t say all things are good, but all things can work for good. And through that tragic incident in Maricela’s life, there was hope.

There was forgiveness. There was redemption and reconciliation within that family.”

To Greg, the bugs are like a photo album. Each one pinned under the glass is attached to a memory — the smell of the soil in French Guinea, a campfire conversation with natives in Panama, a rainstorm in Serbia. With some of the bugs, he sees Rodney’s face and hears his voice. Seeing others, he feels the sweltering heat of a Cameroon jungle, recalls the guards with machetes who delivered rare beetles to him in the middle of the night, or thinks back to the muddy creeks of his boyhood.

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When he looks at this piece, he thinks of Maricela and a transcendent grace that he still cannot fully fathom. He recalls the day she captured Euchroma gigantea. He had spent hours chasing the beetle

54

with no luck, and it flew into the top of a massive tree. Antonio called Maricela over and told her to fetch the beetle for Greg.

“It’s a big old tree. She can’t get her arms around it,” Greg said. “She shimmied up the tree, climbed down a limb, caught the beetle in her hand, and brought it down one-handed. She ran it over to me and placed it in my hand, and just turned around, giggled, and ran off back into the jungle. And so I never did catch one of those beetles myself. But Maricela caught it.

That’s Maricela’s beetle, not mine.”

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56

The Bears are fighting for their spot in the Big XII tournament that runs from May 23-27 in Oklahoma City.

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So, what exactly is an alumni-elected regent?

Since its founding in 1845, Baylor has been governed by a board of regents or trustees who maintain legal authority for the well-being of the University.

The men and women who serve Baylor as Regents safeguard the mission and heritage of the institution, provide strategic direction for the institution, collaborate with University leadership and faculty, and assess resources needed to accomplish goals and support the University mission.

Starting in 2016, alumni had the opportunity to elect certain Regents through a voting process. You may have recently cast your ballot. To make the most of this opportunity to positively impact Baylor’s leadership, it is essential that alumni are involved in the entire process, starting with nominating worthy candidates. And while that time has passed for this current election, it’s important to familiarize yourself with a general timeline of the process.

Some candidates are identified through official University advisory groups, while others are identified through a standard nomination process.

October – November

1. Identify someone who would be a good Regent.

2. Get 50 signatures.

3. Submit the nomination form on Baylor’s website.

Want to make a difference?

Start Here!

December – March

1. Submissions are reviewed.

2. Candidates are selected.

April

1. Candidates are announced.

2. Alumni learn about candidates.

Late April – May

1. Baylor grads vote on candidates.

2. That means you!

June 1

1. Results are made public.

2. The new alumni-elected Regents begin service.

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Candidate Requirements:

Love God. Love Baylor. Be available.

Complete the application. Provide a statement of faith. Get a letter of recommendation. Follow the rules.

Excluded : Faculty, staff, nominating committee, and their immediate family.

Also excluded are the immediate family of Regents. Also excluded are previous nominees of the last 5 years.

2018 Baylor Line Foundation Officers

2017-2018 Board Members Sharon Barnes Jan Barry Babs Baugh Marie Brown Gary Burford Carolyn Cole George Cowden Carroll Dawson Chase Fickling Bryan Fonnville Laura Hallmon Chase Hardy

David Hudson Roland Johnson Mac Jones Shelba Jones Karen Jones David Lacy Michael Merz Brandon Miller Jackie Moore Robert Morales Gwin Morris Doug Myers

Jackie Baugh Moore - President Laura Hilton Hallmon - President-elect Fred R. Norton, Jr. - Immediate past president James Nelson III - Treasurer Nicole Robinson - Secretary

James Nelson Jim Nelson Tom Nesbitt James Nortey Fred Norton Lyndon Olson Tony Pederson Daniel Pellegrin Skye Perryman Brent Perry Katy Pritchard Jay Propes

Kyle Reese J Rice Nicole Robinson Stan Schlueter Stacy Sharp Justin Sieker Keith Starr Randy Stevens Emily Tinsley Wayne Tucker David Vanderhider Missy Wells 59

Hall of Fame Awards

We

had a wonderful evening at The Baylor Club honoring some truly incredible individuals. If you weren’t able to join us at the dinner, make plans to be there in 2019. To nominate an outstanding alumni to be recognized at the 2019 Hall of Fame Dinner, simply go to our website and fill out the nomination form.

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Quotes

you may have missed

On January 20th, we gathered for our annual Hall of Fame Dinner to honor outstanding alumni. These inspiring individuals spoke to the audience about the award, their experiences at Baylor, and what impact the university has made on their lives.

“When I got to Waco, I realized that first of all I did not own a set of hot rollers.

Secondly I had no idea what a mum was, and I had never tasted Dr. Pepper in my life. I always sort of felt like an outlier and I never fit in. But as I think back over my life, I can think of the top ten people who have influenced my life, at least half of them were here at Baylor. I think my professors taught me how to think critically, and how to use my voice for justice and peace.

”

REV. AMY BUTLER ’91, M.A. ‘96 | Pastor at Riverside Church

“My friend Ella Pritchard is here tonight, former trustee of the university. And

Ella was editor of the Baylor Lariat in the Fall of 1962. In the Fall of 1962, she had the courage to write an editorial contrary to instruction encouraging the integration of Baylor University . . . It’s that type of courage that comes out of Baylor journalists. And it’s no accident that so many of us have become staunch advocates of the first amendment, and staunch workers for freedom of the press, here in the United States and worldwide.

”

“I grew up on a farm and went

to a one room country school.

Almost an unaccredited high school. And my parents were wonderful. They were people who didn’t give me anything except what really mattered, which was integrity, work ethic, and the feeling that I could do anything. They expected us to go to college, but there was no support for that. I decided I wanted to be a doctor.

”

DR. MARILYN ESCOBEDO ‘66

Professor Emeritus

TONY PEDERSON ‘73

Belo Foundation Distinguished Chair in Journalism at Southern Methodist University

“Daddy told me he always thought that a person’s calling was in the gifts they had been given, and diligently pursuing

a life that embodied those gifts. Baylor University was a key part to the foundation of my understanding of what gifts I might have. It was a training ground for how to give those gifts life. So God bless Baylor University. God bless all of you.

And thank you to the Baylor Line Foundation for this wonderful honor.

”

HON. KIRK WATSON ’80, J.D. ‘81 | Texas State Senator

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Want to recognize an outstanding alumni?

Possible awards include Distinguished Alumni, Outstanding Young Alumni, W.R. White Meritorious Service, First Families of Baylor, George W. Truett Distinguished Church Service, Herbert H. Reynolds Retired Administrators, Abner V. McCall Religious Liberty 62

Alumni stories

BOB GRIFFITTS | Whitney Asay | Adam Debower

If you know of an interesting alumni with a unique and compelling story, send us a note at baylorline@baylorlinefoundation.com

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T

hrow a dart at a map of America.

Somewhere, Bob Griffitts (’72) is driving down the highway in his red Chevy, pulling a camper behind him.

His dog, Lucky, is sitting in the seat beside him.

Many Baylor alumni have met Bob over the years, and most of those people have stories to tell about him. While a student in the early 70s, Bob played on a few legendary basketball teams, and was also known as a prankster on and off campus. Since graduating, Bob has lived an eclectic life with its share of ups and downs.

Unfortunately, the previous decade was mostly downs.

“I went through a divorce and lost everything like ten years ago,” Bob said. “I had a heart attack. It was a stress heart attack. I got my house foreclosed. I lost every bit of money I had. And I went through a depression for a year. Clinical depression. And then I came out of that luckily and I realized, wow, I don’t have to answer to anybody. I don’t have to do anything.”

BOB GRIFFITTS

On the road

By Craig Cunningham

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He started thinking of how to start over. More importantly, he began reflecting on what he truly wanted in life. His slate was completely clean.

He had nothing tying him down. No commitments. No payments. So he set out for a life on the road, living out of a tiny camper with minimal comforts. He took his dog, Lucky, along for the ride. He found a few websites that helped him plug in to short-

term work opportunities at state and national parks. He started from Waco and has been to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Virginia, New Jersey, Florida, Georgia, and New Mexico.

“When I first decided to do this, people said, ‘Aren’t you going to be lonely?’ I said, ‘Look, for 30 years I’ve been a member of this support group that’s all over the United States.’ And I said, ‘I will have friends everywhere I go.’” Support groups have been an important part of Bob’s life for over thirty years. Now, he counts it a great privilege to help others on their road to recovery.

He considers himself a mentor figure to others who may be just now picking up the pieces.

So as he goes from place to place, he is also able to stop in to groups and connect with others who may need someone to talk to.

Everywhere he goes, he tries to build relationships with the people he meets, whether in a recovery meeting or under the stars in a campground.

At the different parks, Bob has noticed a few surprising trends.

There’s an entire subculture of people who wander the states going from park to park, just like him. They’ll work for a few weeks, and move on to the next gig. Jobs are posted online, and most of them are first come first serve. Often, the parks require a 20 hour work week, and their payment structures vary. “There’s a lot of Millennials out there,” Bob said. “They are buying trailers, RV’s because they don’t know where they’re going to end up working. So you run into a lot of right out of college people, a lot of older retired people, and a lot of teachers do it in the summer.”

Not every work opportunity turns out exactly as expected.

Recently on a job north of Albuquerque, Bob found out that he would be serving as the night watchman for a medicinal marijuana farm between two Indian reservations. He had heard stories about cartels making inroads through the area, but didn’t think it would impact him. He worked for around two weeks, and then one morning someone fired a gun at him as a warning shot.

He considered that the end of his commitment, packed his truck, and hit the pavement.

On the road, Bob does his best to stay up to date with everything going on at Baylor, especially the basketball team.

“Baylor was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Bob said.

When he comes into town, he gathers with a group of former athletes at George’s to catch up and share his adventures from the road. “I’ve stayed in a million-dollar mansion and I’ve stayed in Walmart parking lots,” Bob said. “I never know. I never know, you know? I’ve decided I’m just going to do this until I get tired of it, and I don’t see me getting tired of it any time soon. It’s total freedom.”

Bob is currently working in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.

To reach out to him, you can email at robertgriffitts@gmail.com 65

Whitney Asay The Bountiful House

By Lindsay Smith ‘10

i

n Mount Vernon, Texas, a blue storefront stands out on the square. The building’s exterior does not grab your attention as much as do the sounds filtering out from inside.

This chorus of laughter belongs to around 15 beautiful children.

Board Director and volunteer Whitney Ramsay Asay (BS ‘98) describes the greeting she receives many days as “shouts of laughter and silliness.”

While expressions of joy are always a gift, these giggles are especially precious. This laughter is the fruit of a harvest sown in tears, sorrow and patient faith. This is not the story of what has always been, but rather, what God has transformed through the daily obedience and determined faith of a community.

Welcome to The Bountiful House.

The Bountiful House is a non-profit organization, providing afterschool care to at-risk children. The program includes a weekly meeting with a hearty snack, devotional time, assigned chores, tutoring, and games. However, Whitney interjects this “would not really begin to describe it” because “The Bountiful House is a family.” Contributing their time and talents to the ministry, other Baylor graduates are also Bountiful House family members — Steve Asay (BS ’90) and Betsy Farmer Gekiere (BA ‘88).

Six years ago, Whitney first heard the Bountiful House president, Anna Hood, present her vision for the ministry.

Ms. Hood along with future Bountiful House volunteers, observed children wandering downtown after school without a safe place to go. Many of them came from families in the cycles of addiction, poverty, and broken homes. Others struggled in school or wondered when they would have their next meal.

Whitney immediately knew she wanted to join this vision to care for the community where she grew up and where three current generations of her family call home.

As a wife, mom of three, and active community member, Whitney kept a busy schedule, but her strong faith directed her to volunteer. She also credits her time at Baylor for helping prepare her for this position.

“As a student, Baylor did an exceptional job of emphasizing service to God and to others. My Baylor years helped give me a desire to look for opportunities to plug in and extend the kindness and love of the Lord to people.”

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Gekiere also notes part of The Bountiful House’s unique success comes from the organization’s commitment to “building authentic relationships — with God and each other,” priorities she saw modeled during her time at Baylor.

One of Whitney’s favorite memories from 2017 was when her husband, Steve, took a boy from Bountiful House to Rockport, Texas for Hurricane Harvey cleanup efforts. During the week, they worked side-by-side with former Baylor KOT’s.

“I see withdrawn kids opening their hearts as they begin to feel safe and loved”

“These were boys who had never seen the ocean, not to mention men and college-age guys joining together to serve people they had never even met. The conversations shared and the experience gained is something that only the Lord could have orchestrated.”

Although holding many important roles since its founding, Whitney would never take credit for the success of The Bountiful House. The Bountiful House is the story of God’s work – a story that is having a real impact on the futures of the kids they serve.

“One real way you can love your community well is by seeing a heart need and helping to meet it,” she says. “What I can see now are volunteers from many different churches uniting to serve in this place. I see formerly angry children become more patient, more open, and more confident. I see withdrawn kids opening their hearts as they begin to feel safe and loved. I hear prayers of new faith followers. I see family members, parents of some of these children, now free from drug addiction and currently sincerely seeking and serving the Lord.”

To learn more, visit thebountifulhouse.com 67

Adam Debower Austin Beerworks

By Scott Spain-Smith

With an award-winning brewery that employs over fifty people, Baylor grad Adam DeBower is living his entrepreneurial dreams.

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a

dam DeBower came to Baylor to study anthropology with a concentration in forensics, and then went on to earn a master’s degree in criminal justice in New York. For the next few years he used his degrees working in the district attorney’s office in Manhattan. However, after a roommate gave him a beer homebrewing kit in 2006, Adam quickly found a new passion in life; he sold everything he had to begin looking for any job he could find in the beer industry. This is how he ended up at a brewery in Maryland that is now called Flying Dog. While in the Maryland area Adam made some key connections, specifically befriending Will Golden. Will says of Adam, “Yeah, most people stop at pipe dreams, but Adam is very persistent. He is the motivator of the group. He just wouldn’t let [the idea of opening a brewery] die. It wasn’t just talk, he was like, “We’re doing this thing.” Adam, Will, Michael Graham, and Mike McGovern would become the four co-founders of Austin Beerworks.

Meeting Will was not the only crucial connection that Adam made.

In 2007 he went to a Baylor Alumni Association watch party in Washington DC to watch Baylor play Texas A&M. Although the game

did not go so well for the Bears, who lost 34-10, it was here that Adam met Courtney Forsell (‘04) who was working as a presidential appointee as the media coordinator for Henry Paulson. Adam describes many of the conversations in their first year of courtship as ending with, “I can’t tell you yet, but you’ll see it on the news tomorrow.” The two were wed in 2013.

After a few years in Maryland it was time for Adam to return to Texas where he worked at Real Ale in Blanco. While working there the early foundation for ABW was laid, and in 2010 he left to work fulltime launching the brewery.

Austin Beerworks likes to claim that they have only recently begun distributing outside of Austin, but their very first sale was at The Dancing Bear Pub in Waco on May 21, 2011. The Dancing Bear has long carried ABW and more recently Shorty’s Pizza Shack has added it to their beer list as well, thanks in large part to Adam and Courtney’s love of Baylor athletics.

Pearlsnap, ABW’s flagship pilsner, is canned in bright green and gold.

While ABW has experienced huge growth in its short seven-year stint, so has the entire craft beer industry.

When ABW began selling beer in 2011 there were only 37 breweries in Texas. Now there are over 250. While this is a huge area of growth for our state, Texas only ranks 46th in terms of number of breweries per capita.

Adam devotes much of his spare time away from ABW to advocating fixes in antiquated beer regulations that inhibit and cap how much growth is possible for Texas craft breweries. He is also on the board of directors for the Texas Craft Brewers Guild.

Back in 2011, the co-founders thought the brewery would be considered a success if they could ever get production up to around five thousand barrels. This year, ABW will produce around twenty-two thousand barrels, which is nearly 7.4 million pints of beer.

While Adam was the connection between all of the founders, he doesn’t take any extra credit in their success, but attributes much of it to the different valuable skill sets each of them bring to the business.

Just last year the brewery completed a five-million-dollar expansion, including an all new taproom, and the company currently employs over fifty people. And while the four founders are business partners, they also continue to build their friendships with one another, one pint at a time.

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OBITUARIES

A quick note on Down The Years : You may have noticed that we don’t have a section for class notes. Part of the reason for that is because submissions have been low. But, we would still love to hear from you!

Visit us at baylorlinefoundation.com to submit your notes, events, and obituaries. On this page, you’ll also be able to see others who have submitted.

Galen Robert Alderman Jr. (he would not answer to that, he is just Bob) was, and always will be, my soul mate. He was my partner. He was the kindest, most generous and loving father to his four children, Amber Williams Trickey, Robby Alderman, Katie Alderman Salazar and Cole Alderman. Although the children are grown, we still practice “helicopter parenting” at full throttle, and they have come to accept it.

As they age, they even seem to appreciate it. Their weddings were breathtaking. I hope some of you were able to attend. We welcomed Jon Trickey, Rachel Alderman, Fabian Salazar and Robin Alderman as their partners into our family. Multiple grandchildren have blessed our lives including Gage (8), Kimber (5) and Rowan (5 weeks); all are happy and healthy. We were able to share precious moments with our family in places all over the world. We have been so blessed.

Bob went to Churchill High School in San Antonio (1972), Baylor undergrad (1976), and Baylor Law School (1979). He graduated from law school at just 23 years of age and came to Lufkin to join the Zeleskey Law Firm, where he practiced for 35 years before forming a partnership with Bob Cain and Erika Neill in downtown Lufkin in 2014. He was as passionate about his practice as he was about his family – a strong oak, with flexibility and strength combined. He left no detail unfinished for his clients and law partners, and for the most part, he did it all on a legal pad.

He believed in paper, not digital information – something tangible and tactile that could not be deleted.

His passion was Barefoot Ranch, his horses and the work he loved to do there. I always struggled with that part. I wanted to go to the ranch for leisure, he wanted to do the work – the mowing, repairing fence, preparing the hay meadows, caring for the horses. He found purpose in the completion of a task, done the “right way.” He explained that his work as a lawyer was never finished, never truly completed, it was an ongoing calling and service to his clients. In contrast, when he mowed a pasture, and finished, he could see the fruit of his labor and felt fulfilled.

He served this community in many ways. He was active in the Volunteer Services Council, Noon Lions Club, Chamber of Commerce, the State Bar of Texas, the American Bar Association, Angelina County Bar Association, Texas Associate of Defense Counsel, State Bar Foundation, coaching of Youth Baseball and Soccer, Leadership Lufkin, YoungLife, Baylor University Alumni Association, Crown Colony Country Club Tennis Association and First Christian Church.

Please join our family in honoring him – a great man who touched so many people. I pray his spirit stays with us, as God will allow him, but that he spends eternity on a ranch prepared just for him… somewhere on the outskirts of heaven.

– Your loving wife of 32 years, Kaye.

Dr. Marcus Aubre Burch, 65, went to be with our Lord and Savior on February 6, 2018, a few months prior to his anticipated retirement in South Carolina. As the New Year began his strength rapidly declined and Jesus quickly called him home. Marcus fought a good fight, finished his course, and kept the faith. He was born in Yorktown, Texas, on November 18, 1952 to Daniel Aubre and Bobbie Sue (Williams) Burch, both of whom preceded him in death. Marcus graduated from W. B. Ray High School in Corpus Christi in 1971, from Baylor University (BS) in 1975, and from Baylor School of Dentistry (DDS) in 1978. He enjoyed practicing dentistry in Texas for over 40 years. He was a doting husband to his college sweetheart and a dedicated Daddy and Gampa, who relished each moment spent with his children and grandchildren. Family was his passion and that could certainly be felt by those whose lives he touched. His family is blessed with the peace of God which passes all understanding, knowing Marcus lived his life to the fullest and has passed on his best virtues and steadfast faith in Christ. The family wishes to express their gratitude to all who have provided care and compassion during this difficult time.

Ervin Davis, 92, of Waco, passed away Friday at his residence. Mr. Davis was born on December 2, 1925 in Pearl, Texas to William Alvis and Hattie Ruth (DeLoach) Davis. He served his country in the United States Army during WWII with his twin brother Erwin as a bazooka team. Ervin was the recipient of 2 bronze stars as well as many other decorations and citations for his service. On February 20, 1955 he began his barber career in the SUB at Baylor University, where he worked for 56 years. Mr. Davis continued to work up until the time of his death.

He was a member of Meadowbrook Baptist Church.

Susan Frick Smith ‘72 of Amarillo, Texas and Tulsa, Oklahoma passed away on September 8, 2017. While at Baylor, Susan was President of CHI’s Women’s Service Club. She graduated from Baylor with a degree in education and biology and later received a master’s degree in biology from West Texas A&M University. She was an educator for 39 years as a high school science teacher in Vega, Texas, Amarillo, Texas and Norman, Oklahoma. Later, she served as an Education Specialist at Region 16 Education Service Center. As Project Director of the Region 16 Texas Science Collaborative, she was the 2010 recipient of the Nita Beth Camp Legacy Award for Excellence in Science Teaching. She was also recognized as Teacher of the Year in Vega and received an Award for Dedicated Service as an Excellent Science Teacher by Amarillo College. Susan was a deeply committed teacher who taught every class as well and thoroughly as she possibly could and wanted her students to understand the wonders of God’s creation. She was a clever, giving friend and found joy in her dogs.

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Dr. James W. Vardaman, 89, passed away January 31, 2018 in Waco.

Dr. James W. Vardaman was born on November 26, 1928, in Dallas, Texas, where he grew up as the youngest of five children of Daisy and Ephraim Jeremiah Vardaman. In 1945, at sixteen years of age, he enlisted in the U.S. Marines and served in the Philippines as well as on board the Pasadena. His military service provided him an introduction to the wider world, to war and the aftermath of war, to typhoons, to sergeants and their disciplinary techniques, and to fellow enlisted men in the Marines with whom he lived and served. His lifelong regard for friendships made during those years was always specific to the individual.

He spoke of fellow Marines warmly by name, state, hometown and pithy remarks that were as fresh in his mind at 89 as they had been when he was 20.

He also maintained lifelong regard for those military and government leaders whose values and vision enabled them to conduct themselves by admirable and lofty standards.

Most importantly at that juncture in his life, military service in World War II gave Dr. Vardaman the door through which he walked into higher education — the G.I. Bill. He was grateful forever. Being decommissioned at one minute after midnight on March 18, 1949, at a base in Oklahoma, he then drove all night to Waco, Texas, where he enrolled that day, the last day of registration for the spring quarter at Baylor University. As a distinguished scholar and historian later in life, he reflected on occasion that the most significant moment in his life was seeing his name and grade posted on a small piece of paper by a professor’s door in the summer of 1949. He had passed a university course — and was going to be able to become a college student at Baylor.

His intensity for learning and maximizing every day of higher education had begun.

Beginning with gratitude for his sister, Professor Ann Miller, who tutored him at Baylor, his love of all things literary and historical grew with each year of extraordinary courses and undergraduate studies. The fine history faculty, particularly Dr. Bruce Thompson, affirmed their

student’s aptitudes and encouraged him to consider a career as an historian because it would be a perfect fit. It was. In 1951 he completed Baylor in 2 years, taking overloads each term. He earned his Master’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1952 and his Ph.D. in British History at Vanderbilt in 1957.

His teaching career included winning the top teaching award at TCU, then earning a special place in the lore of Virginia Military Institute for five years as well as taking wideranging opportunities for summer teaching and fellowships, including University of Virginia and University of North Carolina.

However, in 1967, when several Baylor professors and Judge McCall contacted him regarding an open position in the History Dept., there was no question what would be his next step in academe: He was coming “home” to his alma mater. Here he thrived and received many teaching honors. He was named a Master Teacher in 1993 and elected to Phi Beta Kappa, as an alumnus.

He chaired the Beall-Russell Lectures in the Humanities for nine years, bringing to campus distinguished national and international giants such as Nobel Prize recipient Czeslaw Milosz; the Very Reverend Michael Mayne, Dean of Westminster Abbey; A. S. Byatt; Edward Said; Bill Moyers; Robert Haas and many others.

He taught in and then directed many international programs for the university, including teaching in Baylor in Vienna and Baylor in London before becoming director of Baylor in the British Isles, a program housed for nearly 20 years within the confines of Westminster Abbey at Westminster School. His international teaching included serving an exchange professor to the Yunnan Nationalities University in Kunming, PRC, in 1984-85 and was followed by a memorable trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway across Russia.

He began the semester-long program for Baylor in Maastricht, The Netherlands, in 1995, a program that continues to be a proud feature of Baylor’s international programs and draws students and faculty from across the university. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Dr. Vardaman also led many alumni trips across Europe, to South America, and most notably, of course,

back to the British Isles and Ireland. His relationship with former students was a great treasure to him, as were his friends and family. Dr. Vardaman concluded his tenured years at Baylor in 2000 after 33 years of teaching and inspiring students to ground their worldviews within the vast narrative of humankind.

At retirement, Dr. Vardaman built a library to contain about 5,000 of his favorite books. He could be found there many hours a day for the past almost two decades. Drawing on his vast knowledge, he was the perfect reader of the great tomes across all times and spaces, countries and civilizations. He often offered up sober details about historical events and personages to his family and close friends, insights that the most learned scholars could possibly have profited from knowing.

(One point among many to remember: the Magna Carta was “sealed,” not “signed” by King John at Runnymede.)

In 2017 a professorship in the history department was established in Dr. Vardaman’s name. As additional tributes have been lifted to his memory and legacy this week, Michael Livingstone, a former student, has described him as “my earthquake.” Another, Dr. Scott Harper, reflected on his professor in terms of the Dylan Thomas poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” and speaks for many when he says: “I have never known anyone like Dr. Vardaman who more raged against the dying of the light: the light of enlightenment and education, the light of justice for wrongs committed at every level of society and culture, the light of friendship and love, the light of his own life.

He did not go gentle into anything.”

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Mary Cole Farrow Long BA 44, MA 65, After a long, full, and happy life, Mary Cole Farrow Long died on January 20, 2018, at age 95. Born in Dallas, Texas, on October 1, 1922, to Ernest Eugene and Sadie Flynn Boone Farrow, Mary is pre-deceased by her husband of sixty-six years, Dr. William Bowman Long. She is survived by her four children, all of whom are Baylor graduates, 12 grandchildren, 6 of whom are Baylor graduates and 19 great-grandchildren.

After receiving her MA from Baylor in 1965, Mary began a career teaching English at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. During her tenure there, Mary taught Freshman and Sophomore English, Creative Writing, and sponsored the literary magazine, The Baylorian.

She retired in 1983.

During her years in Belton, Texas, Mary organized and served as President of the Central Texas Poetry Society as well as the City Council of PTAs (and various school PTAs). In addition, Mary was active at First Baptist Church Belton, teaching Sunday School and serving as President of the Woman’s Missionary Union.

After retiring from at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Mary put into practice what she had been teaching and wrote four books of genealogy on the Cole, Boone, Farrow, and Long families. In 1997, she and her husband, Will Long were co-authors of a history of the Nose Brotherhood at Baylor University from its founding in 1926 to 1965.

Honors Mary has received include being named by the Central Texas Chapter of the Baylor Alumni Association as its first Distinguished Baylor Woman in 1994. Mary and Will received the Baylor University Founders Medal in 2004 and the Herbert H. Reynolds Meritorious Service Award in 2005. They also received the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor’s Distinguished Service Award in 1995. M ary is listed in various Who’s Who Biographies, including Outstanding Educators of America, and Who’s Who in American Education.

Jonathan Odum Beasley, age 67, of Lansdowne, PA, passed away on June 9, 2017. Born in Rayville, LA, he was the son of the late Dr. Leon O. and Marjorie Beasley (nee Wood). He grew up in Lafayette, LA where he graduated from Lafayette High School in 1968. He then attended Baylor University where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in 1972. In 1974, he earned a Master’s Degree from LSU in History and then earned his Master’s Degree from Columbia University in Library Science. After receiving his Master’s Degree from LSU in History, he worked for the Louisiana Department of Social Services in St. Francisville, LA as well as The Catholic Worker in New York City, a homeless shelter on the Lower East Side started by Dorothy Day. He then worked as a librarian at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, NY and 30 plus years as a librarian at Eastern University, St. David’s PA. Reading, music, and spending time with friends and family were his favorite pastimes. Jon was a gracious and good person. He had many friends and he touched the lives of the many people he met. He and his wife Sam hosted “Camp Beasley” for his nieces and nephews for many years where he showed them many sites in Philadelphia, New York City, Washington D.C., and the Jersey Shore among others. He was a loving husband and brother who will be missed greatly. Jon was a former member and church treasurer of Woodland Presbyterian Church in West Philadelphia. He was presently a member and Bible teacher at Bethany Evangelical Church in Havertown, PA. He was also a member of the Friends of the Library, Eastern University. Share your condolences and words of comfort with the family of Jonathan Odum Beasley at www.lafuneralservices.com.

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Richard Alan Young, 73, passed away unexpectedly January 20, 2018. He was born in Rochester, NY, August 17, 1944. Richard is a U.S. Navy veteran and served during the Vietnam era. He has a PhD from Baylor University in Theology. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Emory University with a Master of Theological Studies. He also has a PhD from Bob Jones University in New Testament. He taught at Tennessee Temple University and Chattanooga State Community College. He was active in the weekly Gospel Jam Sunday evenings at Brainerd United Methodist Church. Prior to that he and Laura ran the Christian Laity Institute programs at the church. Richard is the author of Intermediate New Testament Greek: A Linguistic and Exegetical Approach; Healing the Earth: A Theocentric Perspective on Environmental Problems and Their Solutions; Is God a Vegetarian? Christianity, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights; Intermediate Hammered Dulcimer: Technique and Theory; and The Old-Time Mountain Dulcimer: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners. He will be buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Norfolk, VA and a memorial service may be at a later date. Please share your memories of Richard with the family at www.chattanoogaeastchapel.com

Luther Lattimore Hillman, 80, passed away Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018. Lou was born July 7, 1937, in Leakey, Texas, to the late John R. and Erna Hillman. He was raised in Galveston and graduated from Ball High School in 1955 and Baylor University in 1959. After graduation, he served in the Texas Air National Guard from 19601961. His career began in 1961 in Houston with Dun and Bradstreet. In 1963, he was Chamber of Commerce General Manager for Trinity, Texas. Lou was a member of the Employee Relocation Council (ERC) since 1977; a charter member of Grapevine Rotary Club; first paid staff member of the Grapevine Chamber of Commerce, serving as manager from 1964-1967 and later as chairman of the board from 1977 to 1978; the first CEO of Northwest Dallas Chamber of Commerce; a president of Northeast Tarrant County Board of Realtors; Texas Association of Realtors Board of Directors; the North Texas Real Estate Commission Board of Directors; and served as one of the pioneer members of DFW International Airport development team. In 1972, Lou embarked on a career in commercial and residential real estate, opening Lou Hillman Red Carpet Realtors in Grapevine. For over 45 years, he served as owner and general manager of the brokerage, which in 2014 became Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Lou Hillman, realtors. Lou loved traveling the world with Aimee, his beloved companion of 33 years; fishing; photography; and spending time in the Texas Hill Country and Galveston. He loved people, made strangers into friends, and told good stories. Above all, Lou loved spending time with his grandchildren.

John Finas Powell of Waco, Texas, passed away on February 19, 2018, at the age of 63. John was born on November 22, 1954, in Austin, Texas, where he spent his boyhood and graduated from A.N. McCallum High School. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Baylor University and a Master of Science degree in statistics from Texas A&M University. He also earned a teaching certificate from Houston Baptist University. John was a Fellow of the American Academy of Actuaries, having passed all of the difficult and challenging examinations required for that prestigious credential. He went on to have a long and distinguished career as an investment actuary, working primarily for Unum Provident in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and later as a consultant for Aegon.

From a young age, John developed and maintained a passionate interest in the sport of baseball. He was an outstanding Little League and Pony League player in the Northwest Austin area. Until he died, he was a rabid Houston Astros fan but had a later enthusiasm for the Atlanta Braves. For many years, he was a season ticket holder of the Chattanooga Lookouts minor league organization. As a boy and as a young adult, he attended many games in the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” the Houston Astrodome. John was an avid baseball card collector and a card-carrying member of the Society for American Baseball Research, attending several national conferences of that

organization. He also collected an assortment of baseball posters and memorabilia. John was absolutely thrilled that he had lived to see the Astros win the World Series!

John’s other passions included books, movies, music, and above all else, his daughter and son, Hannah and Grant. He especially loved mystery novels and collected many first editions by some of the most famous authors of that literary genre. He adored the novels of Larry McMurtry, having traveled to Archer City, Texas, once to catch a personal glimpse of that renowned writer. His favorite western movie of all was certainly Lonesome Dove, from which he often delighted in quoting. Willie Nelson was John’s favorite musical artist, although he was able to attend many outstanding concerts that featured other popular singers and instrumentalists. His enjoyment of music and his love for baseball were gifts he shared with both of his children as they matured into adults. As with his friends and other family members, John took great pleasure in teasing them and in offering them funny stories or witty remarks whenever possible.

Donations may be made either to the Powell Family Nursing Scholarship at McLennan Community College through the MCC Foundation or to the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. As John quoted Gus McCrae on his deathbed, “It’s been quite a party.”

William Hightower, 1932-2017 William Bryan Hightower departed this life and entered into the loving arms of the Lord on November 14, 2017. Bill was born in Waco, Texas to Bryan Jennings and Emma Pfaeffle Hightower on September 26, 1932. He attended Waco High School where he excelled at golf and played football. Upon graduation, Bill spent two years as a member of the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University in College Station. He was gratified when his father permitted him to return to Waco to attend Baylor University where he became a lifelong Baylor Bear fan. It was at Baylor that Bill met the love of his life, Dorothy Covington and they were married on July 17, 1954. Following graduation from Baylor, Bill joined the United States Air Force as a Second Lieutenant and was stationed in Mobile, Alabama where their first son, Richard, was born. It was there that Bill developed a love for planes and flying. He always said the most beautiful part of flying was the final approach. Bill then joined Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in management positions in Midland and Fort Worth. He later joined his father-inlaw Tom Covington in the family casket manufacturing and distribution business, Dixie Casket Company, where he remained until his retirement in 1997. Bill was an active member of the Executives Association, which met on Tuesday mornings at River Oaks Country Club where many life-long friendships were formed. One of Bill’s greatest joys was driving up to “Benny’s Fence Line” at his hill country hunting lease, “Cherokee Creek” with his brother, Jack, and the other members. Cherokee Creek was a place to get away with dear friends, children and grandchildren to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation and develop deep and meaningful relationships. Bill also loved the game of golf and spent many hours on the course with his friends and family.

Mark A. Boyd, BBA 1975. Mark passed away unexpectedly on December 28, 2017. He was born August 11, 1953 in Waco to Brownilee and Walter Boyd. He attended Baylor University as a Citizens National Bank Scholarship Recipient and went to work for Citizens National Bank upon his graduation. He spent 33 years of his career in that building through numerous name changes until retiring from Bank of America in 2004. He then went to work for Community Bank and Trust where he worked until his passing. He enjoyed being actively involved in the Waco community and served in leadership roles for many organizations, including the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, Waco Business League, United Way, Waco Industrial

Foundation, Waco Performing Arts Co., Cameron Park Zoo, Baylor Waco Foundation, the City of Waco Transportation Committee, Waco Founders Lions Club, Habitat for Humanity, Leadership Waco, and Central Texas Lighthouse for the Blind. Mark loved his family, Waco, and Baylor University. He was passionate about his work and had a smile and a kind word for everyone he met. He was the ultimate professional. He enjoyed spoiling his grandkids, hunting with his family, and golfing with his friends, especially his yearly Rancho trips.

He hosted amazing backyard barbecues and loved his yearly fall festival trips with his grandchildren in Pennsylvania.

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Photo courtesy of Baylor Photography

Corrections from the last issue : The graduation year for Ms. Walker and Rev. Robert Gilbert was 1967, not 1968. The relationship with Seinan Gakuin started as early as 1949.

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Eugene W. Baker, Baylor University Historian Emeritus Writer, The Towers of Baylor pg. 46

Dave Sikkema ‘10 Cartoonist pg. 19

Sarah Combs, ‘01 Poet, Everafter Tree pg. 37

Rae Jefferson, ‘16 Writer, Route 7 pg. 49

Olivia Bragg ‘20 Stats, Copy Editing pg. 32

Jonathan S. Platt, ‘16 Writer, Sandtown pg. 34

Luke Blount, ‘08 Writer, A Foundation for Collaboration pg. 44

Lindsay Smith, ‘10 Writer, Whitney Asay pg. 66

Britain Seago, ‘20 Writer, Trafficking Bought, Sold, Saved pg. 40

Jan Epton Seale Poet, Passage pg. 43

Joy Moton, ‘18 Writer, Victoria Malone pg. 18

Kathryn Kreuger, ‘06 Photographer, Mayor Deaver pg. 21, 24 + Cover

Lisa Asher, ’89, MA ‘99 Writer, Return on Investment pg. 28

Bryan Fonnville, ‘09 Interview with Mayor Deaver pg. 20

THE BAY LO R LIN E | S PRIN G 2018

CONTRIBUTORS

Additional contributors include : Hannah Anderson, Artist pg. 77 Sarah Dyer, Artist pg. 42 Scott Spain-Smith, Writer pg. 68 Elise King, Artist pg. 32 Shelby Pipken, Artist pg. 77 Burnet Cole, Writer pg. 31 Tanner Freeman, Graphic Designer (Inside covers) Trey Huneycutt, Photographer pg. 11, 60 Robert Miller, Writer pg. 12 Hughes Dillard , Writer pg. 14 Emily Tinsley, Writer pg. 15 Special thanks to The Texas Collection and Baylor Photography

These are some of the talented and passionate people who contributed to the stories in this magazine.

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