Around the State: Baylor center receives grant; Coffee and Connally named award recipients

Baylor University’s Center for Christian Philosophy and its Institute for Studies of Religion received a three-year, $2 million research grant from Templeton Religion Trust. The grant will allow a multidisciplinary team of scholars to study the virtue of accountability and its relation to other human goods, including conscientiousness, empathy, humility, forgiveness and gratitude. The research project will begin this fall. Stephen Evans, university professor of philosophy and humanities and director of Baylor’s Center for Christian Philosophy will serve as project director, working alongside co-directors Byron R. Johnson, distinguished professor of the social sciences and director of the Institute for Studies of Religion, and Sung Joon Jang, research professor of criminology.

Ken Coffee, retired associate director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas State Missions Commission and former executive director of San Antonio Baptist Association, and Virginia Connally, first female doctor in Abilene and Baptist philanthropist, will receive the 2018 Texas Baptist Legacy Awards. The awards will be presented at 10 a.m., June 3 at the historic Independence Baptist Church at 10400 FM50 near Brenham. Lunch will follow the worship service. To make a reservation for the meal, call Becky Brown at (214) 828-5301 or email [email protected].

East Texas Baptist University recognized Jacqueline Ramos as the 2018 J. Ward Walker Lecturer. The university’s integration of faith and learning committee selected Ramos, coordinator of academic support for the ETBU office of academic success, for the award, named for a former vice president of spiritual life. Recipients of the annual award are selected based on their exemplary and consistent engagement of faith with scholarship, teaching, or administrative service. Ramos—who holds both an undergraduate degree in psychology and master’s degree in counseling from ETBU—serves with Buckner Family Pathways and on the worship team at New Beginnings Baptist Church in Longview.

The Howard Payne University Woman’s Club awarded the 2018-19 Yellow Rose Scholarship to Katie Cravey, a sophomore communication major. The Woman’s Club awards the scholarship annually to a female student who will begin her junior year the upcoming fall semester and has maintained at least a 3.0 grade point average since beginning her freshman year at HPU. The recipient is expected to have participated in campus extracurricular activities and exhibited leadership qualities representative of the Christian values and beliefs fundamental to the university. Cravey is a member of the Christian service sorority Delta Chi Rho, a participant in Baptist Student Ministry and a volunteer leader of high school girls at First Baptist Church in Brownwood. She has been a leader of new-student orientation, a staff writer for the student newspaper and a participant in seven HPU theater productions. She also has volunteered at the Huntsville Children’s Theatre Camp, assisted with the Huntsville Community Theatre as stage manager and worked as a camp counselor at Camp Eagle in Rocksprings.

East Texas Baptist University recognized Lauren McCollum at the 71^st annual Senior Girl Call-Out, the university’s most longstanding tradition. Selected by campus community vote, the individual “called out” each year is distinguished for exemplary Christian character, social consciousness, personal poise, academic achievement and spiritual vision. McCollum, a nursing major from Midlothian, is a member of First Baptist Church in Marshall. She served on the ETBU chapel worship team and the women’s ministry worship team. She has been involved in the honors program and served as a resident assistant. Twenty-eight young women participated in the Senior Girl Call-Out event alongside their “little sisters”—underclassmen chosen by the seniors.

Anniversary

175^th for First Baptist Church in Caldwell. Steve Johnson is pastor.