Texas Tidbits_41805

Posted: 4/15/05

Texas Tidbits

Gift enables Baylor to build Student Foundation Center. An $850,000 gift to Baylor University from Ed and Denise Crenshaw of Lakeland, Fla., will enable the school to build a Student Foundation Center, as well as create endowed scholarship funds. Crenshaw, who graduated from Baylor in 1973, served on the steering committee for the Student Foundation and was its president during his senior year. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Ed Crenshaw Student Foundation Center is scheduled April 29.

DBU receives $2 million gift. Dallas Baptist University has received a $2 million gift from the estate of Noble and Jane Hurley of Dallas. The Hurley Family Memorial Endowment Fund was created for the university's general charitable purposes. The Hurleys were longtime members of Gaston Oaks Baptist Church in Dallas and were deeply involved in denominational service in a variety of roles.

ETBU Great Commission Center director named. Allan Thompson, Baptist Student Ministry director at East Texas Baptist University, has been named director of the newly established ETBU Great Commission Center, effective July 1. The center will focus on the areas of student leadership, missions, and church and community ministries. Thompson holds a bachelor's degree from McNeese State University and a master of arts in religious education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He served as a Southern Baptist missionary to West Germany from 1982 to 1988 and is a former youth minister at First Baptist Church of Mabank and Pine Drive Baptist Church in Dickinson. Thompson and his wife, Jana, are members of Central Baptist Church in Marshall and have two sons; Joel and Ryan.

Board proposes Hispanic education task force. The Baptist General Convention of Texas' Christian Education Coordinating Board voted to recommend creation of a task force to develop a strategy that involves BGCT-related institutions, associations and churches in intentional efforts to encourage and better equip Hispanic youth toward the pursuit of higher education. The recommendation will go to the BGCT Administrative Committee and Executive Board for consideration. The coordinating board motion recommends the presidents of the BGCT and the Hispanic Baptist Convention enlist 18 to 24 members for the task force. It also calls for the BGCT initially to spend $35,000 toward the effort.

Hardin-Simmons campaign tops $28.6 million. Hardin-Simmons University's "Securing the Future" fund-raising campaign has reached a record $28,674,018.18 in pledges or cash. When Craig Turner was inaugurated as university president in September 2001, he set a goal of increasing the school's endowment to $100 million. The market value of the university's endowment and similar funds is about $89.2 million, and Turner reported Hardin-Simmons recently received an estate and gifts from three anonymous donors amounting to more than $1 million. In addition to increasing the endowment, several capital projects are associated with the campaign, including creating welcome and hospitality centers, expanding the athletic complex and improving grounds and landscaping.

UMHB housing construction begins. The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor has broken ground for additional campus housing on the northwest side of the Belton campus. The $6 million construction project is scheduled for completion in October. The project will include three buildings adjacent to the existing Tryon Apartments. Each of the new buildings will provide 16,500 square feet of living space, and together they will house 144 students.