Lockney Christian College (3): Apparent Troubles

Following five years of successful work as president of Lockney Christian College, G.H.P. Showalter resigned and moved to Bethel, New Mexico, near Portales. He explained that he was going there to help S.W. Smith, a co-founder of the school at Lockney, to establish another school.[1]

In retrospect, this move seems related to a string of events, all of which reflected and made for instability. In 1902, the year Showalter resigned, W.O. Hines, Arthur S. Kennamer, and N.L. Clark purchased Lockney Christian College. The new owners changed the name to Lockney College and Bible School.

The next year, Clark, who was then serving as president, announced that he would be moving to Grayson County, Texas, some 300 miles to the east. Clark was moving there to become president of Gunter Bible College, a school that was always controlled by non-Sunday School advocates among the Churches of Christ, and that eventually trained hundreds of students of that persuasion, including 150 preachers. Then, during the 1903-04 school year, Lockney Christian College was apparently never in session.[2]

Were these unexpected changes at Lockney connected to the fact that over the next few years, N.L. Clark, one of the new owners, and who succeeded Showalter as president, would emerge as a prominent leader among non-Sunday School advocates? The details are not easy to track down. But it may be noteworthy that in 1904, when Showalter returned to serve a second time as president, his first act was to restore the name of the school to Lockney Christian College.[3] It might also be significant that, to this day, in the towns of Lockney and nearby Floydada, both of which have been dwindling in population for decades, there are congregations of the non-class persuasion and congregations with separate Bible classes.

Notes

[1] Handbook of Texas Online, R. L. Roberts, "LOCKNEY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE," accessed February 12, 2019, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/kbl14.

[2] Ibid. See also Robert M. Platt, "A History of Lockney Christian College," 1960, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Research Center, Canyon, TX, 17-21. For more on N.L. Clark and Gunter Bible College, see M. Norvel Young, A History of Colleges Established and Controlled by Members of the Churches of Christ (Kansas City, MO: Old Paths Book Club, 1949), 152-58; and Handbook of Texas Online, N. L. Clark, "GUNTER BIBLE COLLEGE," accessed February 16, 2019, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/kbg22.

[3] Platt, "A History of Lockney Christian College," 21.

Lockney Christian College (1): Early Beginnings

Construction begins for Lockney Christian College 1894 (click for larger view)

Among the earliest settlers in Floyd County, Texas, were Charles Walker Smith and St. Clair W. (S. W.) Smith. Contrary to some reports, the two were not brothers. Charles Walker was born in Holmes County, Mississippi, and S. W. hailed from Weakley County, Tennessee.[1] Yet the two men did recognize a spiritual kinship. Both were members of the Church of Christ, and both took an interest in Christian education.

In the fall of 1894, they established Lockney Christian College, "a school in which the Bible was taught daily in connection with a regular academic course."[2] With an announcement they titled "To the Brotherhood and Friends of Lockney Christian College," the Smiths made their appeal to like-minded believers to support their project. Some did. Above all, the Firm Foundation, a popular church journal published from Austin, Texas, edited by its founder, Austin McGary, provided consistent encouragement. In the fall of 1894, just as the school was opening, the journal included an announcement that heralded the school and that described Lockney as "a beautiful and healthful location. . . in the heart of the plains, one of the natural wonders of Texas." Partly because of that kind of publicity, both the college and the town grew.[3]

In a new, frame two-story building twenty-four by forty-eight feet, classes began on October 2 with sixteen students. Mr. and Mrs. J. D. Burleson of Uvalde, Texas, moved to Lockney to serve as some of the first teachers.[4] Although the school was called a college, it offered no college-level courses at first. During its early years, Lockney Christian College taught courses only at the primary and secondary levels. Today, we would likely call it a Christian academy. But it aspired to be a college in every sense of the word. One day it would achieve that status.

Notes

[1] Handbook of Texas Online, Charles G. Davis, "SMITH, CHARLES WALKER," accessed February 12, 2019, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fsm06. For information on St. Clair W. [S. W.] Smith, see https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Smith-113351, accessed February 12, 2019.

[2] M. Norvel Young, A History of Colleges Established and Controlled by Members of the Churches of Christ (Kansas City, MO: Old Paths Book Club, 1949), 148.

[3] Robert M. Platt, "A History of Lockney Christian College," 1960, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Research Center, Canyon, TX,  6-7.

[4] Ibid, 6-8. See also Handbook of Texas Online, R. L. Roberts, "LOCKNEY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE," accessed February 12, 2019, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/kbl14.