In the summer I returned to Little Rock where I was employed as a typist for Southern Equitable Life Insurance Company. Again, I joined Calvary Baptist Church and found several places of service. I must admit Calvary seemed so good after attending the churches in Arkadelphia. I belonged to the First Baptist Church there through each college year except for one semester when I attended Second Baptist Church. Many Sunday mornings found us in the Presbyterian church.
On the advice of my pastor, Bro. Fox, I changed my major from English to Religion. I enjoyed the courses, especially those taught by Dr. Vesper Wolber. Is was especially comforting to have him in the class where there were only two or three girls and about thirty ministerial students. I ‘m afraid I didn’t appreciate all of the latter group as I should have. I dated some of them and found it rather difficult to fight them off for thirty minutes and then have to pray with them in front of the dorm for another thirty minutes. Neither activity has a place in my concept of what a casual date should be. It came as a great relief to renew acquaintances with some of the boys in seminary an find that they were really very fine people.
IN the fall semester of my Junior year I pledged the WCF social club. My ministerial friends disapproved of the clubs and made life rather miserable for me during pledging. With the encouragement of Dr. Phelps, the college president, I managed to make i through the two weeks. However, being a member was even less enjoyable than being a pledge. The club contributed very little to my developmeny; even less than I contributed to it.
My student employment that year was as secretary in the BSU office. this made carrying out my duties as Secretary of the Executive council much simpler. Mrs. Joe Simmons was our Director and Dick Norton was President. Dick had “discovered” me during our Freshman year and was responsible for my becoming actively involved in campus activities. I served as campaign manager for several people running for campus offices. They usually lost. I also served as Secretary of the International relations Club during the first semester and reporter for Life Service Band in the second semester.
Between semesters I was part of a large youth revival team that went to Grand Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Smith, where the Rev. Jim Pleitz was pastor. Gerald Perry preached and Ben led the music. I think there must have been ten of us on the team. I helped to direct the visitation and train the young people for personal witnessing. The experience was beneficial to me in many ways, but its greatest benefit was in reminding me of the importance of adequate spiritual preparation for leading young people–or anyone.
In March, I attended the Missions Conference at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth Texas. These days marked a turning point in my life. Bill Lawson made me painfully aware of my racial prejudice and of the limitations It placed on my effectiveness as a witness for Christ. My concept of missions was reshaped by the testimonies of the many missionaries I heard. I found myself thinking more intelligently about how my life would fit into God’s plan for sharing the gospel with the world. One bit of advice offered by one of the missionaries still serves to awaken me to the opportunities for witnessing all around me. It was “If you don’t do it here, you probably wouldn’t do it there.” Back in Little Rock for the summer I worked at Calvary for two weeks while the church secretary was on vacation. Then I was fortunate enough to be able to work in the License Bureau at the State Capitol.
My Senior year began with a BSU pre-school retreat. It was there that I really became friends with Barbara Corrington (now Mrs. Jack Tolar, Jr.) Our friendship was to deepen with many experiences shared throughout the year. I had been elected President of the campus YWA and that year was filled with activities related to the office. We had a successful Big Sister-Little Sister party at the beginning of the year. We also sponsored the Lottie Moon Week of Prayer and Offering on the campus. This was a most rewarding experience, although it was not as successful as I had prayed that it might be. My mistakes, which were numerous gave me a more realistic self-concept. It was in November of that year at the BSU state convention in Hot Springs that I became convinced that God was calling me to prepare for overseas mission service. I made my decision public in the final service of the convention and wrote to Miss Dawkins of the Foreign Mission Board after I returned to the campus informing her of my decision.
Dormitory life was an important factor in the process of my education. I enjoyed it although I was not always blessed with the ideal roommates or neighbors. Even then I thought it was just possible that I was not the ideal roommate or neighbor. Our room somehow became the gathering place for whatever floor or wing we were living on. I like to think that the handy half gallon of peanut butter which we always kept on hand had nothing to do with our popularity.
During my Senior year my roommate, Lillie McKnight was President of the Women’s Student Government and I was Secretary of the same group. This really frustrated our Resident Counselor because she didn’t know who to bring us up before when we had midnight pizza parties in the basement kitchen or moved the giant Christmas tree from the first floor parlor to the third floor. I was grateful that the Dean of Students had a sense of humor.
One of my responsibilities in WSG was to plan and direct the receptions following student recitals. At the end of the year I could have written a book on making punch. My favorite was the one to which I forgot to add sugar. Had it been the Religion faculty instead of the Music faculty I probably would have been dismissed from school for spiking the punch.
My student employment was as secretary in the Student Senate office., Dick Norton had been elected President of the Student Body and I was looking forward to working with him again. However, he was stricken with meningitis in the early weeks of school and we had to hold another election. Unfortunately, I served as a campaign manager for the loser (again) and working with his opposition was not the most pleasant task I have every had. Happily, at our last meeting we had a good laugh about our differences and parted friends.
Our BSU director that year was Linda Day, who had graduation from Ouachita the year before. We had become fairly close friends during my Junior year, even though she always managed to start dating everyone I expressed an interest in. I had attended the Missions Conference at Southwestern Seminary again, and came away convinced that I should serve as a BSU Summer Missionary. At the Council meeting where we were to elect the nominees from our campus, there was almost unanimous agreement that I should be one of those selected. I say almost because Linda Day was not of the same persuasion, and of course those whom she suggested were chosen.. this probable was one of my greatest disappointments. I did feel much better about it when the boys from our campus were selected and served so well.
This must have been my year of “pert nigh but not plumb,” as we say in Arkansas. I was nominated for Who’s Who, but missed it by one point. I was selected to represent our class in the competition for Queen of Play Day. The queen was chosen on the basis of the number of points her class accumulated in the activities during the day. We tied with the Junior Class and I had to share the “honor” with their representative.
As graduation neared I began to wish that I had the security of a teaching certificate. I knew that I needed to work for a year or two before going to seminary. Since Ouachita offered only a few very general courses in Religious Education, I was not very well prepared to assume a position in a church. However, I did go to Beech Street Baptist Church in Texarkana as part of a revival team with the possibility of being called as youth director. the committee seemed interested and contacted me several times after that weekend. It seemed fairly certain that they would call me, but at graduation time, I had not neard from them. The same church was considering my roommate Lillie, as organist, and she was having the same experience with them as I was having. I received a phone call from the chairman of the committee about three or four weeks after graduation. After I assured him that I definitely would not be going to seminary in the Fall, he assured me that it was all but settled. I never heard from them again.