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The school year 1967-1968 was magical, BSU-wise, primarily because of a new thing under the sun, a choral Christian musical called ‘Good News!’ With enthusiastic Laura Hammack, a sophomore from Elizabethtown, as director, with some gifted soloists, and with ‘Dr, Y’s’ organizational abilities, Georgetown BSU took ‘Good News’ on tour, as well as giving a campus performance. It was a wonderfully joyous experience. One of the major fruits of the 1967-68 year was my friend and roommate, Billy Kruschwitz, who became one of the first students appointed to Southern Baptists’ new two-year overseas missions program, Journeyman. ‘Krusch’ served as a teacher in Nigeria.
After moving on to Southern Baptist Seminary in the fall of 1968, I gradually lost track of Georgetown BSU. I knew that my friend Jim Smith succeeded me as BSU president, followed in 1969-70 by another friend, David Smith. Dr. Glenn Yarborough left Georgetown to become the State Director of Student Work for Baptists of Tennessee. During these years, the Sunday School Board of the SBC made a major investment in college student ministry through National Student Ministries, located at the Board in Nashville. I knew that Bob and Eddie Fields, returned missionaries from Israel, served Georgetown in Campus Ministry for several years, to be succeeded in 1976 by Dr. J. Thomas Meigs, a Carson-Newman and Southern Seminary grad, who, like myself, had received a Ph.D. in Church History. At some point, Georgetown College took over the sole funding of the campus ministry position, and Dr. Meigs’ official title became ‘Dean of Religious Life.’
Tom, or ‘Thom’ as he became at Georgetown, had a strong bent toward counseling, which was reflected in his approach to campus ministry. He also invented KOINONIA services, creative worship services at chapel time, which involved Georgetown students from many areas of the campus. He organized MANNA, a BSU singing ensemble which performed contemporary Christian music. He encouraged Georgetown students to become involved in KY BSU summer ministry through SON SHARE, a traveling drama team developed by Georgetown alum G. Thomas Smoot. After Thom Meigs left Georgetown in 1979 for a faculty position in Pastoral Care at Midwestern Baptist Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, Carolyn S. Hale of the student life staff served as Interim Campus Minister in the fall of 1979.
The search for a new Campus Minister was led by Dr. Ben M. Elrod, the new President of Georgetown College, and Don Blaylock, Director of Student Work for Kentucky Baptists. The KBC and Georgetown would jointly fund the position and the KBC-preferred title, Campus Minister, would be used. I recall that Dr. Horace Hambrick, a highly respected Professor at Georgetown, and junior Mark E. King, then BSU President at the college, as part of the search committee which interviewed me in the President’s office in the fall of 1979. Having served as pastor of First Baptist Church, Drakesboro, KY, since summer, 1976, I was eager to move my family (including Cory, our 3-year old-daughter, and Dan, a year-old son) closer to Central Kentucky. The option of being at Georgetown, where so many wonderful things had happened to me, was very attractive. Weeks went by, and, having heard nothing from the interview, I had decided the committee was going in another direction. However, in December, 1979, a call came, inviting me to start work as Campus Minister at the college on January 15, 1980. I accepted eagerly.
After several frantic weeks looking for housing, etc., we decided that I would move into a room in Anderson Hall until I could move the ‘fam’ into a little frame house on Rucker Avenue during spring break in March. My first day on campus, January 15, 1980, I was introduced to the student body in a 2/3 filled chapel by President Elrod. (I was amazed at so many empty seats). To my delight, Dr. Robert Mills participated in that same service. My job description included teaching one course per semester in the Religion Department, usually New Testament I or II, occasionally Church History.
I soon discovered that Thom Meigs had recruited a top-notch group of student leaders for BSU. Mark King, president, was joined by Lisa Hines, John Mark Gaskin, Ralph Pate, Emory Riley, Beth Gush, Brent Adams, Kent Price, Penny Sanders, Christine McCoy, Edna Marie Jones, Keith Mull, and many others.
Many of these kids were rising seniors, who, with my gratitude, ‘signed on’ for another year of service on BSU Council. They were a huge help in planning and executing all sorts of activities, including Christian Emphasis Week in the spring, my first Kentucky Baptist Student Leadership Training Conference (where Mark King was elected state BSU President!) and participation in National Student Ministries’ Student Week at Ridgecrest in August, 1980. The latter was my first experience at transporting and supervising a lively herd of college kids over miles of interstate highway in one good van and a couple of much older vehicles. It was indeed a challenge! We also continued the tradition (with the help of Dr. Joe Lewis and Carolyn Hale) of holding an annual Campus Ministries banquet each spring to celebrate the year. In my early years, Grady Nutt, the well known minister/humorist, a trustee of the college, came to the campus annually to speak to a chapel event always packed with students and others from nearby churches.
I realized early on that the Campus Ministry position had little need for innovation (not a strength of mine) but always needed skills of recruitment (which I was pretty good at). I had always been able to meet people well, learn their names, and ask them to become involved in activities and projects. (Dr. Yarbrough was a master at this!) Dr. Macy Wyatt of the Psychology Department handled most of the counseling (which was another weakness of mine). Dr. Elrod had laid the groundwork for enhancement of Campus Ministry at Georgetown through three new programs: (1) the Pastors’ Christian Leadership Scholarship (designed to bring the best kids from KY Baptist churches to Georgetown where they would become involved all through the campus and affect the campus culture–and it worked! (2) the Missionary-in-Residence Program (which would bring to the campus each year a furloughing Home or Foreign Missionary to interact with the campus community–and it worked!) (3) the Campus Ministry Intern Program (in the early years a partnership with Southern Seminary, whereby the Seminary would provide a stipend for a seminary student to serve as an intern at Georgetown–the college would provide housing–and it worked! In effect, Campus Ministry at Georgetown each fall received an infusion of students primed for Campus Ministries involvement, in addition to reinforcements in the form of additional ministry personnel.