How I came to be a teacher at Southern Wesleyan University

version of  10/08/03

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I grew up on a farm in Northern Wisconsin. It wasn't a good farm. The soil wasn't good, and my father was a city boy who didn't know as much about farming as he might have. My parents took me, and my three brothers, to the small country churches that were available nearby. Both of them usually took leadership roles. For the first several years of my life, these churches met in schoolhouses. Some of that time, we had no preacher, just Sunday School classes.

Rev. Bob Thrasher agreed to come to the church that met in the Hauer schoolhouse. (He was pastor to the Whitefish congregation, which was mostly Chippewa Native Americans, while he was also our pastor, and he pastored other groups from time to time, as well. His daughter, Mary Grade, was pastoring the Whitefish congregation, the last I knew, so it has been "in the family" a long time.) Rev. Thrasher was Wesleyan, and he and his wife encouraged me to attend the Wesleyan youth camp at Hayward. (This was the Wesleyan Methodist church, which later merged to become the present body, The Wesleyan Church.) I did so, as a day camper. The Thrashers took some of us boys there. I responded to at least one invitation at the Hayward camp meeting. I knew that I was a sinner, and needed forgiveness. The Thrashers worked me into worship events at the church. I led singing while in college.

As a boy growing up in the Wisconsin woods, on a farm, I had an interest in living things. While a student at Birchwood high school, I read a book, The New You and Heredity, by Amram Scheinfeld. This book, plus Mr. Jacobson's biology class, introduced me to genetics. (This was before Watson, Crick, and DNA.) I wrote to the University of Wisconsin, and obtained a graduate catalog, before I was out of high school. I read the genetics section of the catalog several times.

I attended Wisconsin State College in Superior. While there, I went to Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship meetings fairly often. However, I almost always went home on weekends, so I was not as active as many other students. However, I made friends with several of the IVCF students, who were a positive influence on me. I roomed with Calvin and Ernest Doty, who were also from Birchwood, and others, including my brother David. None of us were outspoken Christians. Calvin later became one, and is a missionary.

Upon graduation, I applied to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I applied for an assistantship to the genetics department, and was given one, which I held for the six years it took me to finish my doctorate. While in Madison, I became an active member of a Wesleyan church that was being pioneered by Mrs. Thrasher's sister, Olive, and her husband, Rev. Floyd Titus. They and their seven children befriended me, fed me, and put up with me. I taught a youth class some, led some singing, worked in Bible school, and became involved in the Southern Wisconsin children's camp, even being director for two years, which amazes me now.

I attended a few IVCF functions at Madison. I attended a noon prayer meeting on a regular basis for some time. I found, or took, time to visit the University library. It was there, in the children's section, that I discovered C. S. Lewis, by reading the Narnia books. God was surely working in my life during those years, in my church, through IVCF, and through what I read.

I was given the opportunity to teach "quiz sections" (small group sessions where students could ask questions and see problems solved) for James F. Crow, and for Bill Stone, who taught the two introductory genetics courses--Stone's for mostly agriculture students, Crow's for mostly zoology students. I enjoyed that, and I suppose that I did a reasonably good job. Bill asked me to lecture to his entire class of about 200, on the subject of bacterial genetics, a two lecture assignment. The conviction was growing in me that I should seek a college teaching position. I liked teaching, and dealing with that age group, and, deep in my heart, I knew that I wasn't cut out to be a full-time researcher. I also liked what experiences I had had in dealing with the youth of the Wesleyan church. 

I applied to the three Wesleyan colleges that I knew about. Miltonvale had no interest. (This institution, a junior college, merged a few years later, and there is no longer a college at the location.) Marion, now Indiana Wesleyan, and Central Wesleyan, now Southern Wesleyan, were interested. (I first heard of Central Wesleyan when the fire burned the girl's dorm in December, 1962. This made national news.) I didn't apply to any other colleges, although I suppose that my advisor, Robert Irwin, wanted me to.

I did not know which of the two colleges to choose. I prayed about it, and studied the matter. One Wednesday night, at church, I made this choice a request. I suppose that the church prayed about it. In the meantime, Paul Wood and Claude Rickman, as I recall the story over thirty years later, approached R. C. Mullinax at church in Central, and asked him if he had heard from that LaBar fellow. (Mullinax was president.)

When I got home after church, there was a call for me. It was Dr. Mullinax. He asked me if I had made up my mind yet. I told him "I just did." I believed then, and now, that this was God's direct guidance.

I had never been south of the Mason-Dixon line, and Central Wesleyan had never laid eyes on me. (SWU doesn't do things like that anymore, and I probably wouldn't either!) But we came to some sort of agreement, and I moved to Central in the green GMC van that I later sold to my father-in-law, arriving on campus late on about Labor Day, 1964. Dr. Rickman, who was the Academic Dean, no doubt very curious as to what sort of person he had hired, soon came to my door and asked me to come over to the Elliott's and look at a flower that was blooming that night.

So I began teaching. I had been concerned about finding a wife all along. Sometime during my first year at SWU, Roy S. Nicholson, a fellow professor, came into First Wesleyan Church, on the SWU campus, to a youth meeting, and said that he had had car trouble, but was supposed to speak in a church service in Easley. I volunteered to take him. I noted a young lady in a blue coat and glasses who was youth president at Arial Wesleyan, but didn't speak to her. That summer, I visited Mike Hill, a student, in Thomasville, NC. Ollie Murphy spoke to me, mentioning that her niece, Faye Coyle, would be attending that fall as a student. She, who had worn the blue coat, did so, taking my biology classes. We fell in love, and were married on October 29, 1966, spending our first months in the former garage where I lived. (The site is now the beach volleyball court at SWU.) My wife has truly been a help and companion to me for all these years. We are both members of United Wesleyan, which resulted from a merger of Arial with Alice Wesleyan church. From the summer of 1966, until August, 2000, I was privileged to be the song leader for that church.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, 1966, Faye and I, and her former roommate, Susan Swaney, went to a worship service in Easley. I raised my hand for a prayer request, not mentioning it to anyone, but it was that we would find a more satisfactory place to live. On the way home, I made a wrong turn. We came by the house where we have lived since the end of January, 1967. God led me to this house, where I wrote most of this.

Eventually, God gave us two children, Stacy Volkert, who is a psychiatrist in San Diego, for the Navy, in Twentynine Palms, CA, and Amber Brubaker, a social worker in Peoria, IL. Both of them have found churches away from home where they are comfortable.

Before the 2003-4 school year, I had asked to be removed from the responsibility of being Chair of Science at SWU. Walt Sinnamon was elected by the Division, and appointed by the administration, and is doing an excellent job.

This is something of my experience with God's leadership. I could certainly say more, about my experience teaching physics while on sabbatical at Bryan, or about how I came to be interested in computers, the privilege of speaking in a few churches from time to time, and some of my experiences with students at SWU, but that's probably enough. God has been good! Thanks for reading.