Texas Tidbits

Posted: 6/09/06

Texas Tidbits

Baptist Health Foundation grants scholarships. Baptist Health Foundation of San Antonio has awarded $125,470 in scholarship grants to Bap-tist Health System’s School of Health Professions and Wayland Baptist University-San Antonio. The foundation’s scholarship committee granted 57 scholarships totaling $75,470 to 58 summer school students enrolled in the School of Health Professions’ nursing and allied health educational programs. Earlier, the foundation approved $50,000 to fund 10 nursing scholarships at Wayland’s San Antonio campus next fall.

Baylor center receives $1.7 million Templeton grant. The John M. Templeton Foundation has awarded $1.7 million to Baylor University’s Center for Religious Inquiry Across Disciplines to conduct an empirical study on spiritual beliefs and practices in China. The cornerstone of the study will be a nationwide survey, conducted by the Gallup Organization.

Three summer interns on the job. Baptist Stan-dard articles this summer will carry the bylines of three Baylor University journalism students serving as interns in a 12-week cooperative venture involving the Baptist Standard, the Baptist General Convention of Texas communications office and Buckner Baptist Benevolences. Serving four weeks at each agency are Laura Frase, a journalism and professional writing major from Longview; Angela Best, a public relations major and marketing minor from Granbury; and Elisabeth Staples, a public relations major and marketing minor from Branson, Mo.

BGCT seeks leaders for missions & evangelism. The Baptist General Convention of Texas is ac-cepting applications for two leading positions in its Missions, Evangelism and Ministry Team. The evangelism team lead will supervise staff members who strengthen churches’ work in the areas of local-church evangelism, Hispanic evangelism, multihousing/Key Church evangelism, resort and leisure evangelism, youth evangelism and prayer. The missions team leader will oversee staff members who serve in the areas of LifeCall Missions, missional church ministries, community missions, Texas partnerships and Borderland/Mexico missions. To recommend someone, apply for or discover more information about these positions, click on the employment link in the upper right corner of the BGCT website, www.bgct.org.

ETBU names provost, VP. Paul Sorrels, vice president for academic affairs at East Texas Baptist University, has been named university provost. ETBU trustees approved the move at the recommendation of President Bob Riley. Sorrells, who has served six years at ETBU, graduated from Howard Payne University. He holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Texas Women’s University and completed post-doctoral studies at Rice University and Texas Tech University. ETBU also has promoted Vince Blankenship, former dean of admissions and marketing, to vice president for enrollment management and marketing. He succeeds David Mohn, who is retiring after 29 years at the school. Blankenship is a graduate of ETBU and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has served several Texas Baptist churches as a minister of youth, music and education.

Logsdon honors distinguished alum. Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theo-logy named Robert Lacewell its 2006 distinguished alumnus. During 45 years of ministry, Lacewell was pastor of Texas Baptist churches in Pleasant Valley, Hereford, Wichita Falls, Texline, Borger and Abilene, as well as Taos, N.M. He is a former Hardin-Simmons trustee and received the university’s John J. Keeter Alumni Service Award in 2003 in tandem with his wife, Martha.