Passing a torch

Buckner’s board of trustees elected Reyes as the Baptist childcare and eldercare agency’s sixth president Jan. 22. He succeeds Ken Hall, who guided Buckner 16 years and remains as its CEO, primarily to help raise money for myriad ministries to children literally around the globe.

Buckner expanded rapidly during Hall’s tenure, particularly investing lives, imagination, passion, expertise and money into orphan care, foster care and adoption services in some of the most desperate places on Earth.

Buckner also looked to the future, and Hall and the board began anticipating possibilities for his successor. About three years ago, they chose Reyes to be president of Buckner Children and Family Services, Buckner’s largest division and the flagship of the organization. Implicitly, they also chose Reyes as Hall’s heir apparent.

Three-year transition

Those three years gave Reyes opportunity to learn Buckner’s staff, operation, history and culture. It also allowed him to serve closely with and learn from Hall, whose leadership inclination kept pushing Buckner to take on new tasks on behalf of children. During that time, Reyes didn’t sit still. He also began to utilize his unique gifts of administration to refine the organization’s structure and of vision to define possibilities for deepening and broadening its ministries.

Those three years also gave Buckner staff and board members time to get to know Reyes and to get used to the idea that he would take over the reins from their beloved longtime leader, Hall.

So, Reyes’ election after three years of second-tier leadership seemed like a birth after parents and family spent months studying sonogram images—not a big surprise, but a significant celebration, heightened by anticipation of great things to come.

Straight from the heart

At a post-election news conference, Reyes revealed his heart on three occasions. Each time, his voice caught and his eyes misted as he expressed both deep emotion and passionate resolve to a room full of news media and board members.

First, he choked up when he talked about Hall. “I love you as a brother,” he said, turning to his mentor and friend and clasping his hand. Turning back to the audience, he said: “Ken Hall always focused on: What about the children? What about the elders? Whatever we do in the future is because of what he has done.”

Second, Reyes’ voice caught when he talked about the organization’s founder, R.C. Buckner. Citing  Buckner’s 1919 obituary in the Baptist Standard, he noted Buckner was praised for having the courage to launch a grand cause and for maintaining a pure soul. “Our cause is still a grand cause,” he stressed. “My prayer is that my soul would be as pure and I would be as brave as he was.”

And third, Reyes opened a window into his heart when he responded to a reporter’s question about his role as the first non-Anglo president of Buckner. Reyes, whose great-grandparents were cattle drivers who were murdered by rustlers, and whose grandfather was a poor migrant farm worker, talked about R.C. Buckner’s legacy of racial reconciliation and justice. “I want to continue that legacy,” he said. “I come from real humble roots, and I understand when people hurt and need help. … And we want to help.”

Children on his heart

Reyes is Texas-born and Texas-bred, and he’s a Texas Baptist through-and-through. But he holds the world’s children in his heart.

That makes the sixth Buckner president a lot like Buckner’s first and fifth presidents. And it means Buckner will continue to expand its ministries to serve as many of the world’s 143 million orphans as possible.