RARE "Baylor University" W.R. White Hand Signed TLS Dated 1963 For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "Baylor University" W.R. White Hand Signed TLS Dated 1963. 

ES-5875E

In

selecting a new president, the trustees recognized that the University needed

someone who had the ability to salve the professional worries of the faculty

and staff over the future of the institution -- fiscally and physically. Many

men were recommended and several of these were considered by the board, but the

only individual upon whom all the trustees could agree was "Billy"

White, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Austin, Texas. Losing both his

parents by eight years of age, William R. White was raised by his grandmother

in Frankston. Though frail and thin he had an unusual gift of concentration, a

unique ability for retention and a powerful voice that he used frequently on

the stage in amateur productions at Rusk Academy where he received his

preparatory training. As he grew up he became active in church life and

eventually decided to become a minister, being ordained three weeks prior to

his eighteenth birthday. He entered Baylor in 1913 but soon transferred to

Howard Payne College in Brownwood where the climate was more conducive to the

improvement of his health. Graduating in 1917, White enrolled at Southwestern

Baptist Theological Seminary where he received the doctorate in 1924 and then

remained to teach missions for the next three years. White left to pastor the

First Baptist Church at Greenville and then pastored the First Baptist Church

of Lubbock. He next served as executive secretary of the Baptist General

Convention of Texas, which was followed by pastorates at Broadway Baptist Church,

Fort Worth, and the First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City which he resigned in

1940 to become president of Hardin-Simmons University. He left that position to

become editorial secretary of the Baptist Sunday School Board in Nashville and

then returned to the First Baptist Church of Austin from which the Baylor

trustees beckoned him for service. At his inauguration on April 13, 1948, White

announced his desire to renew the religious emphases of the institution and to

build additional facilities to enhance the school's physical plant. To the

packed Waco Hall audience he said "Those who launched Baylor University

had a definite concept of its two-fold purpose. It was to serve the church and

the state. I shall add what they always implied -- the world. By the church

they meant the body of Christ as an institution. They meant for Baylor to

provide lay and ministerial leadership for our Baptist churches. They intended

to influence culture and society with our great distinctive principles. They

wanted to enrich and enforce the kingdom of God through Christian

education." He then added that Baylor must lead in keeping active these

great distinctives. White further emphasized Baylor "is committed to the

great principles of the American way of life and we want to see those

principles preserved and given a larger application to every phase of

life." Within a year enrollment on the Waco campus passed the 5,000 mark

(5,102) with a few hundred more in the programs which were being offered in

Dallas and Houston. Additional facilities, both temporary and permanent were

constantly on the drawing board and rising from the ground. The Union Building

was soon completed, the football stadium was constructed, and plans for the

Tidwell Bible Building and the Browning Library began to take final shape. Over

the next few years White concentrated on facilities, student recruitment, and

fund-raising. He was quite successful in all these endeavors and in the fall of

1954 he reported that enrollment was still near the 6,000 mark and many improvements

to the campus were underway. During the next two years construction highlights

punctuated all University reports as Martin Hall, Allen Hall, Tidwell Bible

Building, Morrison Constitution Hall, Speight-Jenkins apartments, Roxy Grove

Hall, and Ruth Collins Hall were completed. At the end of this period it was

reported that endowment had grown from the $3.3 million when White became

president to $10.8 million and the University's assets, including the Waco,

Dallas and Houston facilities, had increased from $17.1 million to $32.3

million. In 1958, even though enrollment was dropping slightly, White announced

new construction plans that included the business school building, a new

science building, another men's dormitory, the expansion of the bookstore and

the renovation of several smaller facilities. Urban renewal proposals to remove

the poor housing areas northeast of the campus also began to be discussed, and

in 1959 with the creation of the Baylor-Waco Foundation, the University

embarked on the first step of what would become a highly successful campus

expansion and enhancement program. In 1959, feeling that his talents could

better be used in development and public relations functions rather than as an

administrator, White worked with the trustees to change his responsibilities so

that he would be allowed to travel and represent the University in these roles.

To do so, the trustees made School of Law Dean Abner V. McCall executive vice

president with authority to oversee the administration of the University. This

arrangement continued until 1961 when McCall became president of the University

and White was named chancellor.