At Ouachita, in addition to meeting new friends I was reunited with many of my friends from Wilson. Ben Bledsoe was in the Freshman class with me and was a great help in adjusting to a new way of life. I had scored high on the entrance exams, especially in English, so I was assigned to the English department for my student employment. I worked for Miss Lois Gardner, who was the French instructor.
I loved everything about college life-except the food in the cafeteria and what I considered to be the overly pious attitude of a group on campus. Most of the latter had transferred either from Southern Baptist College in Arkansas or from Southwest Baptist College in Bolivar, Missouri. Unfortunately, most of them were in the Mission Band, so I avoided it and joined the Life Service Band. I participated in such activities as street services, even though I doubted the effectiveness of this type of witness. I have been relieved to note that some professors of evangelism are openly confirming my doubts.
I later discovered that I was living in the “wrong” dorm, that the really “in” girls lived in the other freshman dorm. I rather liked Johnson Hall. We had a number of upper-class women who were very helpful to us green folk. At the end of the Spring semester I went to Little Rock to join Mother at Sister’s. I moved my church membership to Calvary Baptist Church where Rev Paul Fox had just assumed the pastorate. I was immediately put to work and felt right at home.
During the summer, I worked with a small insurance company doing survey work. Except for a college friend who worked with me, my co-workers constituted a mission field. The work was very hot and tiring but the fresh air and sunshine and exercise were an excellent means of getting me back in shape for school. At the end of the summer the director of our project told me that my witness to the group had borne some fruit. I had not noticed any great change in anyone.
In September I returned to Ouachita and Johnson Hall where I was elected President of the dorm, the first such honor I had received in my college career. I was reassigned to the English department, this time under the direction of Dr. Doster, the head of the department. I served as a grader, tutor for a remedial English class and the assistant instructor in the remedial reading lab.
My activities included Life Service Band, serving on the BSU Greater Council and Sigma Tau Delta, an English honor society. At the time I was elected dorm president I had no idea I would be in competition with the Resident Counselor in the area of listening to troubles. So many new students were bothered that it was so difficult to maintain a vitality in their Christian experience although they were on a Baptist campus and were involved in worthwhile religious activities I could only listen sympathetically, for I was having the same experience.
In the Spring elections I was elected Junior Class Treasurer and Secretary of the BSU Executive Council. In preparation for the latter office I attended the State BSU retreat. We were asked to select a prayer mate for the weekend, and I was on my way to ask Virginia Horton, who had become a dear friend during the year when she bumped into me—on her way to ask me. Thus, began a very meaningful relationship.