PICAYUNE — You might recall that Pastor Wilbanks and his wife informed me about the annual homecoming at Oklahoma Baptist University and invited me to go along and get a look at the school. I agreed immediately and met them on the appointed day at the church to travel to Shawnee for the big event.

The homecoming was awesome. At the center of the campus stood the huge bison statue, the icon of the school. The buildings, the well-dressed people, the food, the athletic events and a well-performed musical in the evening were overwhelming to a country kid who didn't have a quarter for a movie. However, the possibility of ever being a student at this great institution seemed even more remote than ever before.

Nevertheless, when the day for enrollment and entrance exams arrived I was on Bison Hill. It came about because of the interest Pastor Wilbanks and the largesse of a lady who belonged to First Church, Ardmore. She invited me to visit her in her home after which she gave me $30 to help finance my first year. The school gave me a standard reduction in tuition because of my status as a ministerial student and I was ready to look around for living accommodations and a job. I also put my little portable typewriter up for sale, the only thing I had that might bring a few dollars. When the men's class at First Church, Ardmore heard about it they made up an offering of $30 and because I would need my machine for preparing class assignments, they gave it back to me.

Since I could not afford to live in the dormitory, I made connections with three other ministerial students and an education major from Kansas and we rented a little two bedroom cottage with double bunks and a small kitchen. Since there were five of us and only four bunks, one had to sleep on a cot that was folded away every morning.

Cooking and house keeping assignments were rotated and things got off to a fair start except that it soon became apparent that some of us were no great shakes as cooks. When classes started, our crowded conditions made study at the house virtually impossible. John Smith (his real name) was a talker and George, a tall drink of water, loved to spin yarns. The other minister, Linston Brister, was an upperclassman like George. John Smith later became a missionary to the Mormons in Utah, Linston taught Bible in a Baptist college, and George became a pastor after graduation and seminary training. Carl Brown, the education major, soon persuaded me to move into a little tourist cabin across from the university campus where the two of us had greater privacy for study. The one room cabin had a bed, a table and a couple of chairs and the rent was $6.00 a month. We cooked on the hot plate and washed dishes in the sink that doubled as a lavatory.

An odd thing happened before we moved away from the other three men. Our house caught on fire. At least I was told that it had caught on fire but I only saw it after the blaze had been put out. Here's the way it came about:

The other men were still up when I got sleepy and went to bed. Because of the cramped quarters we were all in the same room. John Smith was trying to adjust our Coleman kerosene lamp (we had no electricity, only water and gas for cooking and heat) when he spilled some of the kerosene and it flared up. Although I was asleep I reacted to the yelling as they were trying to get the lamp out. I jumped off the top bunk, ran out the door and was running down the street in my underwear before I woke up. It was quite a shock to wake up and find myself running down the street with nothing on but my shorts so I slowed down and stopped. Hearing a noise behind me I turned and saw the gang out in the yard beating out the burning lamp where John had thrown it.

It was only after I returned and inquired that I discovered that my sense of self-preservation was strong enough to get me out of harms way even while I was asleep. Needless to say, the lamp was extinguished and the house was saved.

I could spend a lot of space telling about life in a small denominational college in Oklahoma in the middle of the twentieth century. OBU was well respected among the institutions of higher learning in the state but that was when a higher value was placed upon the humanities and moral values were still considered valuable. It was a feeder school for the state universities where graduate students pursued professional degrees in medicine, law, and education. Our graduates did very well in their advanced studies and a good percentage of them became faculty members in several universities.

One of my favorite teachers was Uncle Jimmy Owens, the language professor. He enjoyed kidding around with his students and telling corny jokes. He had a great spirit and we all loved him even though the best thing you could say about his jokes was that they were clean.

Dr. and Mrs. Owens taught their children at home instead of sending them to public school. As a result they were ahead of their age group and the two youngest, a teenaged girl and a 12 or 13 year old son were in my Spanish class. Uncle Jimmy's two children and a blind girl embarrassed the rest of us by earning the top grades.

Dr. T.L. Bailey, the bald headed professor who wore his hat for his Yahnseh (yearbook) picture was professor of chemistry and agriculture. I remember a class in animal husbandry in which we were supposed to distinguish between several breeds of chickens. He even assigned us the task of drawing a picture of a chicken typical of each breed. He wanted a free hand drawing and cautioned us against tracing a picture. When the pictures were handed in a couple of days later he looked them over, picked one up and held it up to the class and said:

"I told you not to trace your pictures and I am pleased to see that Jack Watson took me at my word. Nobody could ever accuse him of tracing this picture of a Rhode Island Red hen."

I knew right then that I had chosen well to major in English and minor in Speech, the recommended route for ministerial students. He surely discouraged me from becoming a farmer or an artist. Out of pure interest I did manage a second minor in biology, however.