Around the State: TBM completes work in Erath County

Texas Baptist Men volunteers wrapped up disaster relief work in Erath County after completing 143 chainsaw jobs following an ice storm. They donated 7,789 volunteer hours, prepared 2,905 meals, logged 288 heavy-equipment hours, completed 283 assessments, provided access to 478 showers and washed 205 loads of laundry. Volunteers made 758 personal contacts, distributed 117 Bibles and recorded four professions of faith in Christ.

Elijah Brown, general secretary of the World Baptist Alliance, will speak on “Revival and Persecution: The Story of the Global Church Today” at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. The presentation, which is free and open to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m., March 22, in Manning Chapel inside of the Paul and Jane Meyer Christian Studies Center on the UMHB campus. Brown, who graduated from UMHB in 2002, went on to earn his doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Prior to accepting his position at BWA, he was executive vice president of the 21^st Century Wilberforce Initiative, an organization dedicated to advocating for issues of international religious freedom.

For the second year in a row, Baylor University’s School of Education won a national honor in recognition of its Professional Development School partnership with local schools. The partnership between Baylor School of Education and Waco Independent School District to prepare future teachers has earned the Exemplary Professional Development School Achievement Award from the National Association for Professional Development Schools. The association presents the award to a small number of school-university partnerships each year whose work creates and sustains genuine collaborative relationships between pre-K-12 schools and higher education and prepares the next generation of teachers with classroom experience. Baylor is the only university teacher-preparation program to win the award back-to-back years. Last year’s Exemplary Achievement Award recognized Baylor’s partnership with Midway Independent School District.

The Arbor Day Foundation recognized Howard Payne University with its Tree Campus USA designation for the school’s commitment to urban forest management. Howard Payne University achieved the title by meeting Tree Campus USA’s five standards—maintaining a tree advisory committee, having a campus tree-care plan, dedicating annual expenditures for its campus tree program, holding an Arbor Day observance and offering a student service-learning project. HPU hosted a large group of Brownwood fifth-grade students for a Texas Arbor Day outdoor event last November, which included a tree mulching demonstration on campus.