By Lisa Asher
Associate Editor, Baylor Line and Editor, Between the Lines

I’m looking forward to this year’s Heritage Club on March 29-31 for numerous reasons, not the least of which is that I’m a pretty big hit with the older men. (Ones my own age can be a different story, but that’s a subject for another day!)

Throughout the last decade, I’ve developed a mini-fan club of alums who make a point of finding me during the event to catch up, get reacquainted, and share a few compliments. I even had one woman mistake me for the daughter of one of my (slightly older) office mates–earning her my undying gratitude and my fellow staffer’s undying wrath!

I’d like to think that the extra attention directed my way is because of my sparkling personality or wonderful wit. But when I chance to look around during the three-day event, I’ll see every alumni association staff member being lavished with the same attention and praise. So I’m forced to admit that it’s not really about me–it’s about the Heritage Club members themselves.

Every spring since 1977, the alumni association has hosted Heritage Club, a reunion for people who attended or graduated from Baylor at least fifty years ago. Over the years, the event has grown to include informative seminars, tours of buildings both old and new, and a golden anniversary ceremony for the fifty-year class, who receive diplomas or certificates.

The several hundred people who attend each year love the tours and gush about the Middle Eastern seminar from Baylor lecturer Lynn Tatum. And the new inductees in the fifty-year class always seem humbled by their special ceremony. But mostly the attendees, who represent the Class of 1936 all the way to the Class of 1959, are simply thankful–for their very own reunion without the hustle and bustle of Homecoming. For the chance to reconnect with friends they haven’t seen in decades. And for the event itself and all that the alumni association does on their behalf.

And that is why the staff, in turn, is so thankful for the members of Heritage Club. When you plan and stage the same events year after year, you can become a little jaded. But, to a person, the BAA staff never feels that way about Heritage Club because, for the three days during the event–and for weeks and even months after–we each receive numerous thank yous and compliments about the event, our work, and even ourselves.

Maybe manners were a little more refined back when Heritage Club members were younger, or maybe our staff just looks particularly in need of praise. But whatever the reason, the Heritage Clubbers are unfailingly kind, courteous, and appreciative. For the three days that the attendees are back in Waco, we truly get to experience the Baylor family as we’ve always heard it to be.

So Stuart, Larry, and all the rest of my Heritage fan club, I’ll be looking for you on March 29. I look forward to catching up–and enjoying a little sweet talk, too!

By Judy Henderson Prather ‘73, DMin ‘02
Communications Coordinator

Forty years ago this August …

I enrolled at Baylor as a greener-than-average seventeen-year-old. Very few people from Childress came this far south to college, so I felt like something of a pioneer. And, having grown up under the influence of a fundamentalist preacher, I believe it was God’s grace that brought me here, where I fell under the “questionable influence” of master teachers like Bob Baird and Ann Miller. They, and many others, affirmed my mind and helped to open and strengthen it. By the time I left here, I was changed–like many of you who are reading this.

Twenty years ago last August …

I came to Baylor in a very different role. With my younger son starting kindergarten, it was time for me to contribute to the family’s coffer, so I set out looking for a job I could do while the boys were in school.

Sherry Castello, then-editor of the Baylor Line (pictured far right in this 1991 BAA staff photo), hired me as a permanent replacement for two student-worker positions on the magazine. Desktop publishing was a new development, so Sherry would take the class notes I entered, place them in a template for “Down the Years” (the perennial favorite of all alumni readers!), and send the pages off to be printed.

The job grew, as jobs tend to do, and I served as class notes editor for sixteen years before moving into my current role as communications coordinator. During those years, I’ve watched my own two sons grow into manhood while I’ve celebrated countless babies and new jobs, grieved losses in the Baylor family, and had the privilege of writing about and meet some really amazing people. I loved helping alums stay connected to each other and our university, and I loved knowing I was contributing to Baylor in my unique way, helping my alma mater stay strong.

Just the other day …

I sat on the fifth floor of Cashion Academic Building at the annual service awards ceremony for Baylor staff and faculty. Baylor employees were receiving service pins–starting with the five-year-employees and going all the way up to one professor who was to be recognized for fifty years of teaching.

Looking around the room, I saw longtime colleagues, friends, and even one graying economics professor I had taken for an ill-chosen elective “back in the day.” The 325 employees listed on the program represented 4,400 years of service to Baylor, and I was proud to be among them. With the BAA’s decision last year to separate our operations from the university, I will be the last alumni association employee to be recognized this way.

I had been to the ceremony three times before–at five, ten, and fifteen years–and had now made it to twenty. Some of those years have been difficult ones for our organization, but that has only increased our commitment to work that much harder on Baylor’s behalf.

The last employee to be honored was Dr. Roger Kirk, who started teaching psychology and statistics back when stamps cost three cents and the flag only had forty-eight stars. It was 1958–the year Elvis went into the army. Before receiving a standing ovation, Dr. Kirk spoke for us all, when he said, “The secret is to do what you love doing, and do it to your utmost.”

Serving Baylor University–I love doing that. It’s been a good twenty years, even without the pin.

By Meg Cullar, News Editor of the Baylor Line
Photograph by Sarah Borth/Waco Tribune-Herald

March 7 was senior night for the Lady Bears basketball team, and my husband and I were faithfully in our seats in a sold-out Ferrell Center to bid farewell to three terrific athletes who have made Baylor proud for four years.

As each player walked out to say goodbye, and Coach Kim Mulkey greeted them on the court, it reminded me of the long, sad goodbye scene in The Wizard of Oz. I know Coach Mulkey doesn’t look much like Dorothy now, but remember: she has a braided past. And, ignoring the obvious gender issue, the three Lady Bear seniors made me think of the Lion, Tin Man, and Scarecrow–the truest kind of friends who have made the Ferrell Center seem like a wonderland and who have shown the courage, heart, and brains to deal with the challenges that have come along.

With that flowing mane of hair, who other than Rachel Allison could be the Cowardly Lion? But cowardly–hardly. You have to remember the whole point of The Wizard of Oz. The very thing that every character is seeking is the exact thing that they possess the most of. At one point, the Lion says, “What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk? Courage!” Well, who more often goes charging into the mist of a battle for rebounds than Rachel? The Lion would often start running and then take a flying leap off into the woods. Remind you of anyone going for the basket?

Rachel had a rough spot this year, but she charged back with courage, earning a double-double in points and rebounds in a nail-biter victory over A&M on March 7. And if you want to know who she’s afraid of, heed these words of the Lion: “Not nobody! Not no how!”

Sleek and smooth, Jessica Morrow has to be the Tin Man. Every once in a while, Jessica might need a little bit of oil to get going, but not against A&M in her final game at the Ferrell Center. She was all heart every step of the way, sewing up the victory for the Lady Bears by scoring the team’s last twelve points, including two clutch three-pointers and some nerves-of-steel free throws.

Since the team lost Danielle Wilson to an injury during the Texas game February 28, nobody has shown more heart than Jessica, rallying the team in that game and stepping up to seal the victory against A&M. And as she leaves Baylor, it certainly makes us all wish that our hearts were unbreakable.

The most talkative and friendly character in Oz is the Scarecrow, and that has to be Jhasmin Player. The sight of her going down with a knee injury last year is hard to forget–kind of like watching the flying monkeys tear apart the Scarecrow or the wicked witch set fire to him. Thank goodness she was repaired and ready to go for this year.
The Scarecrow is looking for brains, and Jhasmin is definitely the brains of this operation. She’s the CEO, and it’s hard to imagine how we’ll get along without her. Not to worry–as she told the crowd after the game Saturday night, “After I’m gone, Coach Mulkey’s gonna handle everything.”

As Dorothy says her final goodbye to the Scarecrow, she says, “I think I’m going to miss you most of all.” For her positive attitude, her loquacious habits, her humor, her command of the floor, Jhasmin will leave a noticeable vacancy. As the Wizard presents the Scarecrow with proof of a brain, he says, “Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven’t got: a diploma.”

Well, come this May, all three of these impressive athletes will have a Baylor diploma. It’s proof positive that they possess courage, heart, and brains, because it takes all of those and more to be a successful student as well as an athlete.

In her senior-night comments, Jessica said that she will always think of Baylor as family. I think I can speak for the entire Baylor family in saying that we feel the same way about you three. We’ve enjoyed traveling down the yellow brick road with you. Baylor will always be a home for you, so come back and visit. Remember: “There’s no place like home.”