Texas Tidbits_110804

Posted: 11/05/04

Texas Tidbits

Wayland trustees OK funds transfer. Wayland Baptist University trustees have approved a recommendation to use surplus funds toward a student activity center planned for the Plainview campus. The board's finance committee recommended that $1 million be moved from a surplus operating fund at the Baptist Foundation of Texas into an account of funds already raised toward the Laney Activities Center. The project will be completed in two phases, with the first involving a double gymnasium, indoor running track, weights and aerobics area, classrooms and student lounge. Total projected cost for that phase is $5.6 million. To date, gifts and pledges for the activity center total around $2.3 million, and the university hopes to be able to approach foundations and other donors to help secure the remainder needed to fund the center.

UMHB hosts forum. David Beasley, former governor of South Carolina, will be the keynote speaker at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor College of Business economic development forum, noon to 2 p.m. Nov. 17. Beasley will speak on the post-election United States economy and about global trade and its impact on Texas.

DBU Patriot Weekend offers preview. Dallas Baptist University will offer prospective students a college preview during Patriot Weekend, Nov. 12-13. The two-day preview is designed to provide high school juniors and seniors and their parents information on financial aid options, the admissions process and campus life. Students will have the opportunity to interview for Christian leadership scholarships while parents meet DBU administrators. The weekend concludes with a concert by DBU's student ministry team, Glowing Heart. The cost for students is $25, which includes lodging and meals, as well as meals for their parents. For more information, call (214) 333-5360, or e-mail admiss@dbu.edu. Students who are unable to attend the weekend in November may register for the next Patriot Weekend, Feb. 11-12.

HSU media relations director to retire. Charles Richardson, media relations director at Hardin-Simmons University, has announced plans to retire at the end of May 2005. He first was employed full-time by Hardin-Simmons in 1965, coming from the Abilene Reporter-News, where he was a staff writer, state and Sunday editor and religion editor. He left HSU in 1973 to become assistant editor of the Baptist Standard, where he remained until 1976. He assumed a similar position with the North Carolina Biblical Recorder for six years until returning to HSU in August 1982. Richardson served in the Army as an information specialist in both Korea and Japan. He also was news bureau director for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif., and press representative for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Richardson, who earned master's degrees from HSU and Texas A&M University, Commerce–formerly East Texas State University–earned a bachelor's degree from Howard Payne University, where he recently received the Medal of Service award during homecoming activities. He is a native of Gorman. Richardson and his wife, Karin, are members of First Baptist Church in Abilene, where he is a past chairman of deacons.

Ministry needs food. Cornerstone Children's Ministry Ranch in Quemado, a relief ministry that feeds up to 26,000 people every six weeks, needs food to meet the ever-growing demand of families on both sides of the Rio Grande. "Volumes and volumes, truckloads really" are needed of pinto beans, rice, cooking oil, flour, baby formula and diapers, said Lori Mercer, administrator of the ministry. Spanish Bibles also are needed. "We are having a real problem meeting all the needs of the people here," she said. Anyone wishing to contribute can contact Mercer at (830) 757-1993.