Bill and Audrey Cowley

Published on June 14, 2017

"We had no electricity there. We had no runway lights or anything... So anyway, one of them said that the plane will come here but we have to provide lights on the runway. So everybody come and bring your cars and line the runway
and turn on your lights."

Chapters

Introductions and Background

Bill and Audrey Cowley talk about their early life before entering the missions field.

Play Segment

The Call to Missions

The Cowleys discuss their decision to enter the missions field and the process to become missionaries.

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Going to Nigeria

The Cowleys talk about their decision to go to Nigeria, and their early experiences teaching there.

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Jos, Nigeria

The Cowleys describe the city of Jos, its environment, and the creation of their school.

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The Nigerian Civil War

The Cowleys describe their time as missionaries during the Nigerian Civil War.

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The Jos Baptist High School

The Cowleys describe the layout of the Jos Baptist High School, as well as the operations and curriculum that they used.

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Coming to Samford

The Cowleys talk about their decision to start teaching at Samford.

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Teaching MK Students

The Cowleys discuss the challenges faced by MK students at Samford. They also talk about the differing world views of MK students, and how to teach these students.

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Challenges of MK Students

The Cowleys describe the services that they provided MK students to help them adapt to life at Samford.

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Teaching at Samford

Bill Cowley discusses his teaching experience at Samford University, as well as the differences in worldview between the average Samford students and MK students.

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Support for MK Students

The Cowleys describe the various support groups that provided support to MK students at Samford, such as various churches and scholarships.

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Interesting Stories

The Cowleys relate a few interesting stories from their time at Samford.

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The Religion Department

The Cowleys talk about what the Samford Religion Department was like during their time there.

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Final Remarks

The Cowleys relate some final stories from their experiences as teachers and missionaries.

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Transcript

EVAN MUSGRAVES: My name is Evan Musgraves and I am here with the Cowley’s
[...] When and where were you both born?

AUDREY COWLEY: I was born in Pensacola.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Carry on; you need to tell more about yourself.

AUDREY COWLEY: Shakes head.

WILLIAM COWLEY: I was born in Kentucky in a little town called, well actually, a
rural area near a little town called Irvington so...Do you want to continue the
flow or just...

EVAN MUSGRAVES: You can share as much or as little as you want.

WILLIAM COWLEY: I grew up on a farm and spent a lot of time in the fields and
everyone went to school in the little town about two miles away and continued in
that little school until I graduated from high school. Then I went to Georgetown
College in Kentucky and I finished there. I stayed on at the college for two
more years to do the work as campus minister and alumni director and various
other odd jobs. And after that two years, there were three friends and I who
made sort of a hitchhiking trip to Central and South America and came back from
that trip, went to the University of Florida to do my master's work and it was
there that Audrey and I met and she can fill in when she comes back to her part.
After I finished my master's, that’s when we were married and we went back to
Georgetown where I was on the faculty teaching speech for a year, and at the end
of that year, we went to Nigeria where we were educational missionaries for 23
years. During that time, we were able to found a high school and work with it
about 13 years of those 23. Then we actually, when we came back to, well we have
two daughters who were both born in Nigeria and finished high school there. And
when the older one was getting ready for college we were looking for a college
and we had a very good friend who was in Nigeria as well who was a graduate of
Howard College and he said, "Well, why don't you check Samford and see what you
think about it." His name, by the way, probably should be inserted here, was
Carl Whirley.

AUDREY COWLEY: They have a whole display about him.

WILLIAM COWLEY: And so, on one of our furloughs, actually, from Nigeria we came
to Birmingham and went to Samford and looked around. We were impressed with the
school, with the campus, with the students who, at that time, seemed to be,
really, a cut above students in other places. This was in the 60’s when
college students looked a little ragged. Then when our older daughter was ready
for college and she came to the States, we were still in Nigeria; she was going
to be here a couple of years before we would come. So then, after that two years
it was time for us to have a furlough to come bring our younger daughter to
Samford and so we had thought we would return to Nigeria at the end of that
furlough but while we were here we were very much impressed with the needs that
MKs (missionary kids) had, so we resigned our appointment with the mission board
and I took an appointment at Samford teaching and we were there, I was there for
16 plus years. I guess that would be a good place to break and let Audrey come
in and pick up, catch up.

AUDREY COWLEY: As I said, I was born in Pensacola. My father was in the Marine
Corps. He was a pilot. So I didn't live all at one place all my life. I lived
in, at one time in Central America and Virginia and Kansas and, just, and you
name it, I lived there. But I went to college in, at Florida State. While I was
there I felt lead of the Lord to enter Christian ministry so I went to the
seminary and I had and after the seminary I worked as a youth director in a
church and then I was called to the University of Florida as campus minister and
I was the campus minister there and he had been campus minister at Georgetown so
he was a great deal of help to me. We would, we would go places together simply
because he was helping me in various projects and finally he mentioned the fact
that he was a mission volunteer and I had been feeling lead to be a mission
volunteer as well. So that's what happened.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Which seminary did you go to?

AUDREY COWLEY: Southwestern.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: When did you feel the call to go overseas on missions?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Well, actually, as she said, we had each felt a call to
misisons, overseas missions, and, of course, the time and the place were to be
determined at some future date.

AUDREY COWLEY: Well, actually, he wanted to go to South America and I wanted to
go to Japan but the Foreign Mission Board changed our mind.

WILLIAM COWLEY: But we had kept an active file, each of us separately, we didn't
even know each other, with the Foreign Mission Board at that time. And so, one
of the Foreign Mission Board's requirements was seminary education and if we
were going into educational work, that is, schools other than a seminary for
example, we would just be required to have one year at seminary. Well, I had
actually planned to go to seminary about three or four times, one when I had
finished college (that would have been the first time I would have gone) but
then I had the opportunity to stay on at the college and work for those two
years so I postponed going to seminary. Then at the end of that two year period,
when I went to Central and South America, then that was another time I had
anticipated going to seminary but here came the offer of an assistantship to go
to the University of Florida to work on my master's so I put it off again. Then
after that would have been another good time to go but that's when I was asked
to go back to Georgetown to teach for a year. One of the professors there had a
medical leave and so they asked me to fill in. Having a job then, that enabled
us to be married so I put off seminary again. Well, at that time, Nigeria was
still a colony of Great Britain and, but they were moving towards independence
and they wanted to get as many schools going as they could. The Foreign Mission
Board working with their Nigerian counterparts had more or less committed
themselves to giving a good bit of help in establishing new schools, sending
staff, this sort of thing. So, while we were at Georgetown where I was teaching
and she was then campus minister there because I had been there and I had left,
they had not filled the position so we went back and she took it. We had, I
don't know, a letter, phone call, something from the mission board and they
asked if we would be willing to go to Nigeria. So I told them, I said, "Well,
the first thing we have to settle is this matter of seminary. I have not been to
seminary and I know that's one of the requirements." And so they said, "Yes, we
know that. We have been following your file.” And said, “Interestingly
enough, each of those times that you have postponed going to seminary has given
you another qualification or credential that is very helpful at this time so we
are willing for you to go to Nigeria. In fact we want you to go to Nigeria but
then we'll postpone seminary until your first furlough." So I said, "Well, okay
as long as we both understand that and that you have asked me and I didn't ask
you, then okay." So from the time that the first contact was made like that,
within a year we were there, weren’t we?

AUDREY COWLEY: Oh yes.

WILLIAM COWLEY: We finished the year commitment at Georgetown.

AUDREY COWLEY: It was, it was, we got there in October.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Yeah.

AUDREY COWLEY: It was about six months wasn’t it?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Well, no. They had got in touch with us somewhere before the end
of the year, end of the calendar year. . .

AUDREY COWLEY: Oh okay.

WILLIAM COWLEY: ....in Georgetown which would have been about halfway through
the school year so that would have been, it could have been October, November,
December somewhere along there but then by the next October we were in Nigeria.
So, that's how we decided to go to Nigeria.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: What year did you get to Nigeria?

WILLIAM COWLEY: We went in 1955. Now I forgot a little, I have to backtrack and
plug this in. I did that first furlough at seminary. The second furlough we just
were really, we'd had a lot on us, getting a new school started and on and on.
So we were just fairly well depleted and so we just took a furlough and were
going to make it a real, more or less, a rest furlough so I didn't do any more
on schooling though I had really intended to go further but then the furlough
after that we went to Michigan. I went to Michigan State and took two furloughs
to finish up my PhD. So that was working along in between those other things.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: What was the name of the high school?

WILLIAM COWLEY: In Nigeria? Just Baptist High School. But we had several Baptist
High Schools but they always followed with the name of the town. So we were
Baptist High School Jos. Which was the simplest address we ever had--just three
letters J-O-S. So that's how that all came to be.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: What other work did you do in Nigeria besides the high school?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Well, always, we were teaching. We taught at a school in the
capital for the first three years we were there then we came home for the year.
And it was in fact while we were at home that first year and I was going to
seminary that we had the word, I guess it was a letter at that time because we
didn’t have much other way of communication, asking if we would leave the
school where we were down on the coast, the capital, and go into the interior,
the place where they wanted to have the school and would we be willing to go up
there to start the school and that sort of thing. So we said, “Yeah, sure why
not.” In fact, another interesting little side to go along with that. At the
end of our first three years teaching at Baptist Academy in Lagos, the capital
city, actually, I had just been named vice principal of that school. And in
fact, when Audrey and I went there and started teaching in that school, we were
the first ex-patriot missionaries to teach under a Nigerian principal so then I
was made vice principal there and never really actually served much as vice
principal because we immediately came on furlough and it was during that
furlough. But, anyway, when we left for that first furlough, left Lagos, and we
flew, and the stop on that route flying out was in Jos, this town that we . . .
but I know I felt, and I think Audrey said she felt it too, independently,
separately of each other just when we were there for maybe 30 minutes at that
stop, we just felt, you know, one day you will live here, you will be here. So
when the request came for us to go there, we didn't have to even stop to think
much because we had already thought about that. Said, "Yeah, sure."  We'd known
for a year already.

AUDREY COWLEY: We were just waiting to be told.

WILLIAM COWLEY: So that's how that went.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: What was Jos like?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Well, the first thing everybody would say about Jos was its
wonderful climate. It was on a high plateau. So it was not desperately tropic-like.

AUDREY COWLEY: It’s where people went for vacations because it was cool.

WILLIAM COWLEY: So, beautiful scenery. Absolutely magnificent scenery. The,
Lagos, where we had been before was very tropical, very jungle-y. Outside the
city, I mean, you just, in fact, we lived in a house, it was where the Baptist
Academy intended to move. They had put two houses there and then they were going
to build other things. So we lived there. And it was just, step out the door and
you're in the jungle. And then Jos had been a tin-mining center for a number of
years. So it was a fairly prominent sort of hub from which transportation went
out to other places or it would be a place people would come to buy their
supplies to go further inland, that sort of thing. It was also, because of those
factors, it was the center of mission activity from other missions. Mainly
British missions and some U.S. too but it was their headquarter city. But we
were the, well; we and another couple were the first Baptist missionaries there.
So it was an interesting town. Still a lot of British influence. They still had
British government officials, all the offices

AUDREY COWLEY: It was also the location of the school for missionary kids.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Which these other missions had started. They were actually, the
school for missionary children was owned and operated by 11 different missions
and so that's of course where our children went to school. The school that we
founded was for Nigerian students and the major difference was that the school
we founded was on the British system and the school that the MKs went to was on
the American system. What else would we say about Jos? Just a nice, interesting
place to live. A beautiful place to live.

AUDREY COWLEY: I don't know if you keep track of the news. You've probably seen
where there have been bombings and burning of churches in Jos. There was nothing
of this type, well, I take it back. There were a couple of times when there was
great . . . fighting.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Well, there was not any of this Muslim/Christian conflict at the
time we were there. People lived side by side, it was no problem. Now what she's
referring to is during the time we were in Nigeria totally, but mostly when we
were in the north, we were there through six or seven coups, some of which were
bloody coups and one civil war and so.

AUDREY COWLEY: One time, well our school was on one side of the town and our
children’s school was over on the other side of the town and after this bloody
coup, Bill had to be very careful the way that he carried the children so that
they would not see the bodies that had been killed. And then there was another
time when we had three that we put on the plane who were of the tribe . . .

WILLIAM COWLEY: Six, three students, three teachers.

AUDREY COWLEY: Oh that's right.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Now this is…

AUDREY COWLEY: A different time.

WILLIAM COWLEY: …This is the civil war. The civil war came up. Well, how much
background, how much history do you want?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Anything you want to give.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Well, Nigeria had been roughly divided into three parts by its
colonial countries, I mean, its colonial masters. As it turns out, the
southeastern part of the country, I mean, all over it was still a very thick
layer of pagan underlay but in the southeastern part of the country there had
been a good bit of Roman Catholic work: lots of churches and schools and such.
In the southwestern part of the country, more Protestant churches and such. And
interestingly enough, each of the three major divisions of the country had its
own language so we had been in the southwestern part when we first went there
and now we were sent into the northern part which was Muslim and had its
language as well. Now, other than those three major languages, Nigeria had about
250 languages. But anyway, the people in the southeastern part of the country
were very quick to catch on to and adapt and adopt, well for education, they
just really took to Western education and skills of that sort. The people in the
north were much quieter, calmer type. They didn't really care that much, or
didn’t seem to care that much about some of the material things as did the
people from the southeast. Well the outcome of this was then as the country
continued to develop and move toward independence, then there began to be more
government establishments in the north, more business, more commerce, more
education, whatever. So these eastern people who were very sharp and had already
gotten into all of this, they gradually migrated into the north and began to
take all of these jobs. They weren’t going there with any specific underhanded
idea of going and taking it over. It was just natural migration with what was
going on.

AUDREY COWLEY: They were qualified for the jobs whereas none of the northerners
were interested.

WILLIAM COWLEY: But the people of the southeast had one problem: that is, they
were not very quiet whereas the people of the north were just pretty quiet and
would just go on. So, now here were the people from the east who had taken the
jobs but now they had to brag about it. They had, you know, had to show that
they knew and that they had the jobs and on and on. So they made a bad situation
out of what was, you know, could have been, and had been, a fairly peaceable
situation at that time. But it just continued to go on and became more and more
disruptive. They were increasing in power and the northern people now were
beginning to see what's happening and they are not very happy about that. They
began to make their plans to drive all of these people from the southeast out of
the north and we had had rumblings and rumors of this for several months. You
know, we tried to keep a close eye and ear on things to know what was going on
and we had people who would tip us off and would tell us, you know, what was
going on. And these coups then began to pop up, you see. One bunch of people
would be in power and the others would come and take them out, either peaceably
or, you know, not peaceably.

AUDREY COWLEY: There was one time where the people who were killing people came
down the hill in the direction of the school. They came down the hill killing
people. They didn’t kill anybody at the school but they went past the school
and killed people in the next village which was very close. We felt that that
was an indication that we needed to protect three students and three teachers
who were of that tribe.

WILLIAM COWLEY: This was after that period of several coups and such had gone
on. And then we just, we lived as Audrey said, five miles out of town. Strangely
enough, at that time, we had a telephone that operated. Most of the, all the
years that we were there, we had a phone but it never worked. But some of our
people, by this time we had more Baptist missionaries who had come into the town
because now all of our MKs, well not all, but practically all, from all over the
country were coming to Jos to go to the MK school. So we had people there who
were house parents and people who were teachers and that sort of thing. So
anyway, one set of house parents who lived nearest to us which was still five
miles in, just phoned us one night about midnight or so and said, "Well, it has
started" and we knew what they were telling us because we had heard rumors of it
so long. We could even then hear in the background from where they were calling,
a lot of noise of, you know, screaming, yelling, shots, this sort of things. As
I said, all along, when any trouble was brewing well, people, the Nigerian
people, would tell us you need to stay home for two days or three days or
tomorrow morning you can go on about your business. They knew all of this and
just kept us and so we just did. So, now here was the situation and we knew it
was serious and they were, they had already identified and marked the location
of all of these people from the southeast who were in the north for whatever
reason. And, as Audrey said, we had three students and three teachers who were
from there and with all of this going on, well, what to do? And so there was
nothing for us to do but to put them in hiding. Then, you know, it was just day
to day what we were going to do. We couldn't really plan ahead because we
didn’t know what to plan for. Our plan was just to keep them as safe as we
could for as long as we could. And . . .

AUDREY COWLEY: There was on our compound a guest house that was, had been
occupied by one of our missionaries but she was on furlough and it was empty so
we put these six men in that guest house and, you know, closed all the windows
and made it look like it was still empty.

WILLIAM COWLEY: But then we got word that there would be a plane coming through
maybe a week later or something like that. And if we would have our people at
the airport then we could put them on the plane to go to, safe, to their part of
the country to be safe. So in preparation for this I went, I took a VW bus that
we had and we had lots of police and military checkpoints all everywhere so I
took this...

AUDREY COWLEY: Which were dangerous.

WILLIAM COWLEY: I took this vehicle and went through all of those points,
checkpoints, repeatedly at all times of the day and night so that every one of
them recognized the bus, recognized me and I went enough times at enough
different times so that I would be acquainted with whoever staffed that
particular checkpoint at whatever time. So, you know, my intention was to be
well exposed and to be well recognized and such. And when the day came that we
were told that the plane would be coming in, well we took our six people, we
dressed them as northerners, we put them in the bus, and then we put our
missionary staff all around them and even in the back windows of the bus, our
children were there. So then off to the airport which was, by the time we got
there, it was probably ten miles. And, but we got to each checkpoint and they
just waved and said "Go on through."

AUDREY COWLEY: But our hearts were in our throat each time.

WILLIAM COWLEY: So now here we were at the airport. We were there fairly early
in the morning. And just, we had no idea what time this plane would be coming
because, here again, we were victims of the circumstances in another way because
all of those who would have staffed the airport, who operated the tower and all,
were all eastern people who had left.

AUDREY COWLEY: Fled.

WILLIAM COWLEY: So there was nothing like that there. We just had no way of
knowing and, I'm not sure how the word finally came through but somebody said,
"Well there's airplane coming and it's almost here and it is going north and you
can put your people on that and they can go north to a big city there where
there would be more planes going out to go south." But we didn't feel good about
that prospect because that was just sending these people in deeper into the
problem so I said, "No, we're not going to put them on this plane so we'll wait,
if there is another plane, for it." And we heard in fact that when that plane,
which we did not put our people on, got to that next big city in the north, that
eastern peoples on it were taken off and killed. So here we are. And it's
getting dark and we heard the word that, well, there’s a plane coming now
going south. But remember, we have nobody operating anything at the airport. We
had no electricity there. We had no runway lights or anything so I think the way
we were getting our word was from some people who were, actually, missionaries
of one of the missions, and they had their own air service so I think they were
getting the words over their radios, you know, that's what was going on. So
anyway, one of them said that the plane will come here but we have to provide
lights on the runway. So everybody come and bring your cars and line the runway
and turn on your lights.

AUDREY COWLEY: Can you imagine that?

WILLIAM COWLEY: So that's what we did. The plane came in and we put our people
on. And off they went and we did not hear for years whether they had ever got
there or not. Well, the war went on and it finally ground to a halt. There were
times during that when we got word from the U.S. government said, “You must
keep a suitcase packed and sitting by the door at all times because if we have
to come to get you, it will be on very short notice and you'll need to be ready
to go and if you are not ready, we will not wait for you, you know. And we will
not come back to get you.”

AUDREY COWLEY: And we would go, we would leave the country in one direction but
our children, over on the other side of town, would go in another direction and
hopefully we would meet somewhere in Europe.

WILLIAM COWLEY: But anyway, we lived through that. It was a very touch-and-go time.

AUDREY COWLEY: But several, several years later Bill was in the chapel at the
school (they had chapel every day, chapel services every day) and the door
opened. Well the light was coming; he couldn't see who was coming. But it was
one of those students who had been sent away.

WILLIAM COWLEY: And he came back to finish up his education. He had just less
than a year to finish, I think it was.

AUDREY COWLEY: And he was so grateful.

WILLIAM COWLEY: There was an interesting part of the story involving him. Back
when it was, you know, we could tell things were getting really tight and we
would soon have some trouble, this boy's brother came. They, being eastern, they
were there and they were traders. They had a shop or store or something in a
town about ten miles further, ten miles beyond the airport. Anyway, so this
brother came and said that they were trying to decide whether they should take
this boy out of school, take him home to keep him, safely. So I said, "Well, you
know, it's your decision to make but if you decide to leave him here, we'll do
the best we can for him." Well they decided to leave him but the brother and all
of the members of the family were killed and he was left with us, so anyway. So
I don’t know what, what more to tell you. As Candi [Todd] said, lots of stories.

AUDREY COWLEY: Well, one thing, the reason our school was on the British system
is because at the end of the five years of schooling they had to take an exam.
Their future depended on how well they did on this external exam. And it was
with the British system.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Now, as I said, we were sent there to start the school. We had
to get property. We had to put buildings on. We had to get teachers together. We
had to get students together. So that's what we did.

AUDREY COWLEY: But the first year, the school, the buildings were not built so
there was a stable not far from our house and that was, that was the school.

WILLIAM COWLEY: The, I told you that there had been tin mining in the country.
So in fact, when we were looking for a place to live, we wanted it to be as near
the property for the school as possible. So the tin mining operation had really
decreased quite a lot and so they had empty houses there and we rented one of
those houses and the stable was actually a part of their operation because you
know the British were great at riding horses, polo and all of this kind of
thing. You know, there were nice stables and so we cleaned them all up and
that's where we had our school. We had a classroom. We had a dormitory room. We
had a dining room. So there it was.

AUDREY COWLEY: But by the second year, the buildings were ready.

WILLIAM COWLEY: And, so we had really a, a very good school if we do say so
ourselves. It was well run. It was very attractive. It was, it was in a
beautiful valley at the foot of some mountains. It's just, you know, it was a
good-looking school. And we knew that where we were, being the first of our
Baptist schools in that location, that there would be demand for it from many
tribal areas. And so one of the first things that we put up when we put the
first buildings up was I had a big sign made, it was, you know, about this high
but it was long, however many feet it took to put the verse from the Psalms "How
good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity.” They saw that
every day. In due course, sure enough, we had people from 30 different tribes in
the school but I don’t think we ever had a tribal incident of any sort, ever.
But anyway, as I said, it was an excellent school and when we started the
school, it was a six year school. And we were ready for our first class. Say,
they were going to finish the next year. Well, the government suddenly, as they
often did, they would just send out an edict and you had no rhyme or reason for
it, all you had to do was just try to follow it, so they said the schools are
now going to be five year schools. So we now had, we were going to graduate a
double class: a six year and a five year class

AUDREY COWLEY: And we were supposed to have them ready for the external exams.

WILLIAM COWLEY: So we had to get the five year people, they, you know, had a
long way to go but in a very short time. So it was really, really hectic. Oh,
just all kinds of crazy things that went on. Well anyway, our people took their
external examination and we had a 97 percent pass rate. And a lot of those with
the upper-level grades. Instantly, overnight, as soon as that word came out,
this school became one of the best schools in the country. Then we just had
hundreds of people who wanted to come to the school. We would have entrance
examinations out in the elementary schools.

AUDREY COWLEY: All over the north.

WILLIAM COWLEY: We would send packets of examinations to the headmaster of the
school who would give the examinations and send them back to us. We would,
Audrey and I would grade the papers so to speak. And they had to send a picture,
each student had to send a picture with the application and the test and this
sort of thing. So then we would choose who would be called for interview. One
year we had 1200 applicants for 30 places. So we had a lot of fun.

AUDREY COWLEY: It wasn't fun.

WILLIAM COWLEY: But we tried very hard to really be led of the Holy Spirit as to
who would we ask to come for an interview. Not always depending on what they did
on the examination. There were some of them who didn't do all that well but, you
know, we just felt that this was a person that we need to give a place to. And,
so, the school continued from that day to this as one of the top schools in the
country. And they have tried . . .

AUDREY COWLEY: I think it still is.

WILLIAM COWLEY: That’s right. They have, it's been their intention every year
to keep the school at the standard at which it was founded and first operated.
And that’s, that has kept them right at the top. So now we have graduates of
that school who are all over the world actually and certainly all over Nigeria
in very prominent and responsible places. We could go to Nigeria today and
before sundown we would have a large group of former students that we could make
contact, and, you know, the word spreads all over. So and we hear from some of
them. They have really important places in all government departments, in the
military, in all branches of commerce, education, whatever. They're there.

AUDREY COWLEY: One of the our first classes, one of the first graduates was head
of the Baptist university that was established. He was there for its being
established and he's been to visit a couple of times. But he said that he tried
to pattern the university after Baptist High School. The principles that we had
and what we tried to do there he tried to do at the university. And now the
university is huge. They have a, how many does the chapel hold?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Yeah, their chapel seats 5,000.

AUDREY COWLEY: They have a medical school; they have different areas of study.

WILLIAM COWLEY: It really is a first class school. So anyway, that's, you know,
that's fun when you hear that your former students are doing notable things.
It's very nice. So we've done all this and we haven't even come to Samford.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: That's alright. So how did you end up at Samford? So you're
daughters went to Samford?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Actually, we followed our children here and we came on the
recommendation of Carl Whirley who was one of our very close friends and whose,
whose opinion we valued very highly. So we came and, as it was, that year we
came on furlough, we first of all lived in a missionary house in Wylam. Do you
know Wylam?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: No.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Poor boy, you're so benighted. Wylam is one of the prime
subdivisions of Birmingham and you don't even know it. [Laughter]. Let's see if
we can get something you know, Ensley?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Yes.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Okay, it's beyond Ensley. You know Pleasant Grove?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Yes.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Okay, it's between Ensley and Pleasant Grove. No, certainly not
one of the best known subdivisions.

AUDREY COWLEY: But our daughter who was in school at the time tried to find
where there was a missionary residence and this was the only one that she could find.

WILLIAM COWLEY: And Carl Whirley was here on furlough at the same time. It was a
nice house and the people there were very, very cordial. We had a good time
there. The mills were still working at that time. So there was, it was so funny,
we went to see the house for the first time and it had a little porch out front
and there were, one, two, three, three or four houses identical there. One of
our daughters said when we pulled up one time, she said, "These houses look like
Archie Bunker's house." You know Archie Bunker?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Yes.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Anyway, we were going to go into the house to see what it was
like. On the porch there were little bb’s of soot from the mill. They were
just dancing all over the porch. So now we walked up, stepped in all of that,
opened the door, and the people had painted the house. They had put all new
wall-to-wall carpeting. The carpeting was white and we couldn’t even go in.

AUDREY COWLEY: The soot was black and the carpet was white.

WILLIAM COWLEY: We went to Walmart and got few plastic runners to put all over
the house because the white carpet would have just been a disaster area in no
time. Well anyway, we were there for that semester and then at the end of that
semester the missionary apartment on that campus was available. It was up just
before you go into West Campus up on the top up there. You know where Rotunda
Club is? Alright, on that level that that back of that building if you go
straight on out there used to be an apartment building which is now a parking
lot, I think. So there was a missionary apartment and we went into that. And if
you were in the missionary apartment well they, they didn't require it, but they
really liked if you would teach a couple of courses, which I did. Then as that
semester went on, we really were more and more convinced that we should stay and
do what we could to help children of missionaries who were there. So I applied
for a teaching spot at Samford and as it was, there was a vacancy came up which
required just almost precisely the credentials I had. So I took that place. It
required teaching both in what was the speech department at that time and
religion department. And we, we had some courses that students could count
either way like preaching for example. It could be either a speech one or a
religion one. So I did those. Then developed what later came to be the religious
education minor I guess it became a minor in the department. So I taught speech
department two days a week, religion department three days a week. Crossed back
and forth. On the matter of the children of missionaries, when we came to
Samford there were about 20. As we, we knew our own children, and we knew those
children we had taught in the MK school in Nigeria. We knew some of the problems
they faced. They, depending on where they lived of course, some had tremendous
culture shock when they came back. There were lots of things that they didn't
know how to do because that was the time when technology was just making very
rapid, giant steps. And just for example, how to pump your own gas.

AUDREY COWLEY: How to drive.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Hm?

AUDREY COWLEY: How to drive.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Yeah. Or how to operate a coin washing machine and dryer. Just
things like that. And those are just sort of simple. There was other things,
much more complicated and much deeper significance than that. And we could tell
that once they knew that we had been where they had been, so to speak, then we
had, you know, immediate relationship and we began to be brought in to the fact
that they were having some hard times.

AUDREY COWLEY: And these MKs, they might be from one continent and another
continent, but as soon as they got together there was, there was a bond because
they had, they had not been in the States that much and so when they would come
to our house, they, they were able to relax and communicate and felt like, felt
a part of a group.

WILLIAM COWLEY: They, and it was interesting, they, their common bond was not so
much that their parents had been missionaries but it was the fact that they had
all lived in another culture, in another country. And most of them had travelled
widely. Most of them spoke more than one language. They had a worldview totally
different from what was common worldview in Alabama. Are you from Alabama?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: No I'm not.

AUDREY COWLEY: Where are you from?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: I grew up in Southern California.

AUDREY COWLEY: Southern California? That's a long way away

WILLIAM COWLEY: But there were then, and still are, to some extent, students at
Samford who have not been out of the county and they're proud of it. But anyway,
but here are these students, here these students were and they, like anybody
that age, you know, upper teens, they didn't want to be considered as outsiders
but they were very much outsiders because, you know, what they had, where they
had been, what they had done, and what they didn't know about. And so we just
really felt called to stay so we did. Then at that same time, Samford
administration was very much pro-MK. They wanted more MKs. And so the director
of admissions and financial aid was one person then and the instructions he was
given as we recall, to sit down with each of the missionary parents and say,
"What do you need to make it possible for your child to attend Samford?" So each
one had her own package deal so to speak, worked out very different from anybody
else’s. Some of them needed a lot of help. Some of them needed just a little
help. But, you know, the goal was, what will help this child to be able to
attend Samford. And so within a few years, that 20 increased to 90 and we were
known as the MK college of the Southern Baptist Convention. So it . . .

AUDREY COWLEY: They would have a special orientation every year for the
freshman. And part of that orientation was to come here for a meal. Well, the
freshmen came here for a meal but the upperclassmen wanted to come too. And so
did the graduates who were in town. So the last time we had them for a meal,
well no, not the last time, but one of the last times we had them for a meal, we
had 100 students here.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Wow.

AUDREY COWLEY: Wow is right.

WILLIAM COWLEY: But they, as I said, we had, we had the 100, I mean we had 90
MKs and they made a contribution in their classes that was unique because of
what I have just told you about their worldview and, you know,  how they felt
about things. I had the opportunity to talk to a good many of the faculty
members who taught them and unanimous vote: we really like these people in our
classes. They ask questions. They bring up points that nobody else would ever
think of bringing up, you know, and the thing that we noticed about them too
was, they had a tendency to identify with the underdog which doesn't always make
you popular, you know because you know in the South who the underdogs are. So
that, you know, was another thing. They had several of them, depending on which
country they came from, and I think Brazil was the one we noticed most about
this, but they considered themselves Brazilians before they considered
themselves Americans. So they always felt for that country. And they thought
like those people did. And that, you know, had to be dealt with too. They, well,
in, in the countries where they lived there would be no such thing as their
being able to have a part time job to earn a little spending money. It was just,
just not a possible thing. So they came here, all of their classmates, you know,
already began working when they were in high school. Most of the countries, in
fact, I don’t think there was any country where our MKs came from where you
could begin driving when you were 16. It was always 18. Well that meant that
they had never driven and so now here they were, their contemporaries all
driving, some of them, their own cars. And here these people couldn't drive any
car. So Audrey made arrangements.

AUDREY COWLEY: I was speaking to a group at First Baptist Gardendale and I told
them that our MKs needed to learn how to drive and they said, "Well we've got a
man in our church who teaches driving." So they contacted him and he contacted
me. So he would come to Samford in a car equipped for dual driving and he taught
our students who needed to learn to drive.

WILLIAM COWLEY: So, as Audrey said, we had the orientation just for the MKs
every year. They had their own doctor, they had their own lawyer. You know,
either Tom Cleveland, the guy, the admissions guy, student aid guy, he was, he
knew the community well. We just had all of these things set up for them to try
to, you know, make the road as smooth as possible. And when we had that first
orientation, Audrey always asked, "Does anybody need driver's education?" Well
they would put up their hands and this one year this one girl put her hand up,
took it down put it up, so we said, "What's the situation with you?" She said,
"Well I don't know if I need driver’s education. I have had it by
correspondence." [Laughter]. Okay, but we signed her up. Oh, there are lots of
crazy things. But the main thing is how good they were for the campus. Well,
this is history, we had a change of administration. MKs were no longer a sort of
a priority item. The unofficial word was that the MKs would be thrown in the pot
with everybody else and they would have to, you know sink or swim. Well, this
immediately . . .

AUDREY COWLEY: No special orientation for them.

WILLIAM COWLEY: This immediately meant that they were way behind because, in
their schools where they were overseas, you know, they were not groomed from
kindergarten for college like kids here are, you see. They didn't know how far
in advance you had to work thinking [phone rings] about your applications and
thinking about the SAT and all of those sorts of things. So they were just
immediately in the dust. They didn't know about some scholarships that would be
awarded [Audrey speaking on the phone in the background] on the basis of
competitive exams or interviews. I mean, this was just, you know, mostly out of
the question for them. And again, there was not just a great deal known about
how to communicate with them. We had to just work really hard to help people
understand when you send, in those days, when you sent information, you had to
send two sets: one to their foreign address and one to their U.S. address
because you never knew where they were between those two. Now of course, you can
email and you've got it all solved. Just, there were so many logistical problems
there, and so without that sort of special consideration, then the number just
began to go down. I think now we have about 20 and so we're trying to work to
build that up again. But the, there was something I wanted to put in there for
you on that. Well, anyway, we have felt that Samford was the poorer for not
having that population that they could have had. You know, schools seem to think
that it’s just accepted thing that you make a special push and a special
emphasis to have athletes but people who have a different set of qualifications
and strengths to add, they don't count that much. So anyway. Well, you better
ask a question now.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: What year did you come to Samford?

WILLIAM COWLEY: I started teaching in the spring of 77.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: What kind of courses did you teach?

WILLIAM COWLEY: As I said, I was in two departments. So in religion department,
everybody taught, you know, at that time, Old Testament and New Testament
introduction courses. And so I would usually have two of those and then a third
course would be something that would be more of my specialty sort of thing. Then
over in the speech department I would teach preaching whenever it came up. I
taught public speaking. I taught interpersonal communication, those sorts of
things. So, you know, we figured out the rotation that you would teach those on,
and what in the religion department what that third course would be, you know so
that within x-years you would have covered whatever. And the same thing over in
the speech department: how frequently we would do preaching for example.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: More specifically, what were some of the differences between the
worldview of MKs and the average Samford student?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Oh well, MKs always very shocked at how materialistic their
counterparts were here. They were greatly disturbed to see how much stuff we
have here that their good friends did not have and could never have. They were,
they were, they were really sad when they would meet people that they knew had
been contemporaries of their parents when the parents might have been at
Samford. Now here those contemporaries of their parents now were professional
people, well up in the world, and, you know, commanding a pretty good salary and
they knew that their parents were not getting anywhere near that but they knew
that their parents were equally  well, maybe better, qualified for what they
were doing. They just couldn't put that together, you know, why should that be?
They had difficulty finding a church. They seemed to always to be looking for
the church that was like the one they went to wherever they were, whatever
foreign country they were in. And some of them, frankly, searched and searched
and never found it and today have never found it. But those were the sorts of
things and they, they really, well those who had never been out of the county,
they would just look at them and shake their heads, you know, "Where have you
been? Under a rock all this time?" Those are the sorts of things. If, you know,
when we are so egocentric, when we're so natio-centric if you want to call it
that, they just, they could not believe that people did not see themselves as
citizens of a broader world.

AUDREY COWLEY: Let me interrupt you. This was our daughter, Karen, who is head
of Legacy League but she called because the husband of one of the MK graduates
died this morning at 7:45. Desi.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Desi?

AUDREY COWLEY: Yeah. So we’re still, you know, our hearts are still with the
MKs. And, was it two years ago? About a year and a half ago, they had special
emphasis for the MKs at homecoming and at that time the MKs wanted to come here
and, for a meal, so we had 70 MKs at our house. Some were there, some were
there, some were downstairs, some were . . . But it was a lovely occasion.
They're great kids. They make good adults too.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: My mom was an MK.

AUDREY COWLEY: Your mom?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Who is she?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: My grandparents were missionaries with the Foreign Mission Board
in Barbados, Jerry and Ruth Ann Harris.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Harris?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Yes.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Jerry Harris died, didn’t he? And Ruth Ann married?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: My grandpa, he's still alive.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Well, there was one of the Harris’. Your grandmother, was she
married before she?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: No, it must be a different Harris.

WILLIAM COWLEY: One of the other of them, their spouse had died and they married
the missionary and the Harris, but the Harris name was in there.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Must be a different Harris.

WILLIAM COWLEY: At this same time that Audrey's talking about, we think it was a
time when some of those adult MKs are out in the world, making their own way.
They have been, really been sad to see their population decline at Samford. They
wanted to do, try to do something to bring it back so they began working on
setting up an MK scholarship and they said that they wanted to name it for us so
now we’ve got the Bill and Audrey Cowley MK Scholarship which is now under
Legacy League, you know Legacy League does a lot of scholarship work. So we are
now working on that, trying to get that to fly. What else?

AUDREY COWLEY: I don’t know how far you've gotten [Laughter].

WILLIAM COWLEY: Oh, one thing Audrey used to do quite a lot of was have, take
MKs to different churches.

AUDREY COWLEY: Oh yeah.

WILLIAM COWLEY: You know, the churches would ask for MKs or maybe we could get
an association who would have several churches together that would want to have
them. So for a long time we did that.

AUDREY COWLEY: And the churches loved to have the MKs speak. It was great.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Were there any area churches that a lot of MKs seemed to
gravitate towards?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Well . . .

AUDREY COWLEY: What? I didn't...

WILLIAM COWLEY: Churches that MKs seemed to gravitate towards. Specific ones here.

AUDREY COWLEY: No.

WILLIAM COWLEY: I was telling him one of their problems that they were always
searching for a church that was like the one they knew somewhere else. I don't
know if we could, well, maybe Dawson because, geographically, it is closer to
the campus. I think that might have been.

AUDREY COWLEY: Well, and First Baptist down there. They went there.

WILLIAM COWLEY: But I couldn't, I don't think there was ever one we could say
was the MK church. Another thing that we did, you know, the Foreign Mission
Board has had orientation for its missionaries before they go out and they used
to have it at Callaway Gardens. And so we used to take a group of MKs there
every year to talk to the people who were going to go out. And those new
missionaries, having never been to the field, always wanted the MKs to come.
They were glad they came because, they said, they were the only ones that would
tell them the truth about what was going on. So they served that purpose. So we
made many trips to Callaway. And we had two, a couple, three churches, these
were strangely enough, not in the city, out. I know there was one church that
every fall after school got started, they would have a big lake party for the
MKs and go down and they'd get their boats together. You know, have boating,
swimming, big, big picnic and all that stuff.

AUDREY COWLEY: And then, when we went to, I can't think of, that place, the
camp, we were in that big house for orientation.

WILLIAM COWLEY: You mean out at . . .

AUDREY COWLEY: What's it called?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Out at Cook Springs you mean?

AUDREY COWLEY: Yeah.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Was that an MK orientation?

AUDREY COWLEY: Yeah, but we had MKs from other schools start to come to that.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Yeah well that was after WMU [Woman’s Missionary Union] began
to take over some of that. You see, Audrey, was for five years, she was
treasurer of national WMU and so WMU has always been a big friend of MKs. And
that was interesting thing about when we had a big MK population at Samford, not
only did the MKs add a lot to the Samford flavor but they immediately drew the
attention of WMU more specifically to the campus because you know, WMU had some
MK scholarships; WMU had lots of prayer times for MKs. They were the ones that
celebrated MK birthdays. They were the ones that paid for driver ed for the MKs.
WMU still, still today pays for a storage unit for MKs to put their off-season
stuff or the times when they have to clear the dormitory. You know, they don't
have any nearby attic or basement to take it to so we have a storage unit up
here so and that's WMU. That's all together there. Some things, more
specifically to Samford since that's our excuse for being here. I guess it was
sort of almost a policy I had, but I was not the only Samford faculty member who
had this but, my day began when my classes finished because this was when you
really met students where they were. And, if you could always, always have an
open door, then my feeling was, you could always do so much more for your
students then if you only saw them in the classroom. And, so I can remember that
I, you know I would go to bed at night eager to get up the next morning and see
who was going to come through my door. That's where the action was. Another
interesting thing was, and I think this, this is fairly common given a cycle of
so many years, x-years because I can remember after having been on the faculty
for let’s say maybe, seven, eight, nine years, somewhere along in there, we
would have a faculty delegation who would be sent off to somewhere to study some
new method that was coming up, you know, and on and on and then they would come
back and they would have a workshop for the faculty here usually, you know, the
week before school begins. And they would get up and present all of these
wonderful new things. And those of us who had been here any time would just
begin to look around at each other because that is something that we  had been
doing all the time and nobody had a name for it, you know. So that is a cycle
that goes on. But…

AUDREY COWLEY: But that plan was to be available for the students to come and
talk. Not just in the classroom but even in your home. And sometimes they did come.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Yes, we've had some interesting [Laughter].

AUDREY COWLEY: I don't think you need to go into detail there.

WILLIAM COWLEY: I don't even know if Candi [Todd] knows these. It's interesting
because, pretty close proximity, one, one night in the midnight hour, there's a
phone call. This man identified himself as officer so-and-so at the police
department and did I know a person by the name of and he gave me the name. And I
said, "Yeah sure I know. What's the situation?" He said, "Well, he had your name
and phone number in his billfold" and said "he is high on drugs and he has just
thrown a man twice his size through a plate glass door."

AUDREY COWLEY: Now, this was not an MK, this was one of his students. I want
that clear.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Could I come and get him? So I went to get him. Well, he was a
pharmacy student hooked on drugs.

AUDREY COWLEY: Can you imagine?

WILLIAM COWLEY: So I brought him here. He was just a terrible mess. So I put him
to bed. And so the plan was the next morning I would take him out Lloyd Nolen
Hospital at that time, out in the west part of the city. It's no longer
operating but that was where you took drug patients. So the next morning I got
him up. He desperately needed a bath so I put him in the shower and I had to be
prepared to get wet too because he was just as limp as a dishrag. I am holding
him up with one hand and hosing him off with the other. So get him dressed and
go out. So I took him out there. The doctor said, "We'll admit him. Can you get
him into this hospital garb and settled in?" I said, "Sure." So I started to
help him get his clothes off and all of his pockets were full of, he had gone
through our medicine cabinet and had taken everything he could find,
prescription and non-prescription, and his pockets were full of all those.

AUDREY COWLEY: All of our stuff.

WILLIAM COWLEY: So anyway, we had off and on with him for quite some time. One
day he, well, he was off and on with any number of undesirable girlfriends so
this one time, do you know where Raleigh Avenue is? Alright, you know Raleigh
Avenue crosses Green Springs and crosses and immediately has to turn like that,
goes, that's where the road ends. Well he didn't quite make that right angle
turn. Just went straight on through. So here he was. His car was a mess. He was
a mess. And our daughter, the one that just called, happened to be driving by
that same time, recognized the car, and she stopped to go over to see what the
trouble was. There he was battered up. So she just put her arms around him,
hugged him. She was probably the one that phoned me to come and see about him
and so, he was stoned again and, you know. And then she got to thinking
afterwards, "Will the police think I'm an addict as well because I am so closely
associated?" Well about the same time, there was a law student that I had become
friends with. We had talked a lot. And suddenly he tells me that he is a
fugitive from the law. That he had . . .

AUDREY COWLEY: A pharmacy student is addicted to drugs and a lawyer is a
fugitive from the law.

WILLIAM COWLEY: He had, I think under the influence of alcohol, side swiped four
cars and had left the scene. So, at that point our daughter said, "Can we ever
have some normal friends?" So that's part of it.

AUDREY COWLEY: Now you may have a time limit.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Oh no I don't.

AUDREY COWLEY: You don't?

WILLIAM COWLEY: So now, you're open to any questions if you want. Fire away. Is
there anything that has stirred your imagination or curiosity? What would it be?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: I'm trying to think. What was the religion department like
during your time there?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Okay well. It's, you know, it’s quite a bit different from now
because at that time we didn't have a Beeson. The religion department was always
known as being right at the top of its field. We had, I think, the religion
department, to a man (we had no women at that time), did the sort of thing that
I said, you know, always an open door and students come any time. We were a
department that, we were very loyal to one another. We had at least one faculty
member, maybe on some occasions more than one, but this one, almost every
semester was called into the president's office because some imagined
infraction. He was a person who wanted students to think for themselves. Tried
to help them, to give them information and in encouraging them to think for
themselves, some of them got awfully upset. And you know, they would go home and
report to their parents and their pastor that here was this guy who was such a
liberal and such a irreligious somebody.

AUDREY COWLEY: He himself was not liberal or irreligious.

WILLIAM COWLEY: No, that's just the reputation he got and so, any number of very
conservative pastors who were out to get him, they planted students with tape
recorders in his classroom and all of this. I would say there was not a semester
that passed that he did not get called over to the president's office. But his
department stood with him at all times. He could always count on that. And so, I
always said that to teach in two departments, I was so blessed because both
departments were just the nicest departments to teach in. There was never any
backbiting, never any stabbing. There was, you know, they just supported one
another, whatever came along. Somebody would go to bat. Does that sort of answer
your question?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Yes, it does.

WILLIAM COWLEY: You know, we had people who were top of the heap. And Samford
was really very fortunate to have such a cadre of people like that. And I don't
know that all the current religion department members that much but the ones I
do know are pretty much the same.

EVAN MUSGRAVES: Any other final memories or stories to share?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Trying to think.

AUDREY COWLEY: About?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Samford.

AUDREY COWLEY: Samford.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Well, what to do. One of the most popular classes that I taught
was in a Jan Term. And we devised it, we called it "Communication Seminar for
the Ministerial Student" and it was to deal with all the different ways that the
ministerial, that a pastor would communicate the gospel besides preaching. We
had preaching so now this was to explore other things. And so we had this course
that dealt, it would really be called a practical theology course. We had that
whole month and everyday it was a different topic and everyday had its reading
assignment to go with it. And practically every day we had either a visitor to
come to the class or we made a field trip.

AUDREY COWLEY: And the students were to keep a journal of every day.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Yeah they kept a notebook and included in that, you know, what
went on and what the reading was and on and on and on.

AUDREY COWLEY: And even today some of those students now, preachers and
whatever, say they refer to that journal frequently.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Yeah, it's always on their bookshelf. The first day, I remember,
our topic was always the ethic and etiquette of the minster and we dealt with
his family life. We dealt with staff relations. We dealt with handling his
finances. We dealt with his position in the community. We went to the funeral
home. We went through all of that, what they needed to be prepared to do. We
talked about how to do a wedding. They talked about how to baptize. We always
went to Shades Crest Church and they filled the baptistery and heated the water
for us every year and everybody practiced baptizing.

AUDREY COWLEY: Baptizing each other.

WILLIAM COWLEY: And I tried to tell them, here's the picture you want to present
but most of the time it comes off as a wet mess which is not what we're after.
Think of how this is going to look. And if they didn't do it reasonably
decently, they had to redo it, you know. Get dunked again. But it was a very
popular course and a very tough course. They, you know, you didn't stop for a
deep breath because tomorrow’s another day. If you don't get today you could
hardly go back to pick it up.

AUDREY COWLEY: Now you graduated with a major in religion and history. You
didn't have any of those things in the religion. What about Beeson?

EVAN MUSGRAVES: I haven't yet but there are practical ministry courses later on.

AUDREY COWLEY: Are there? When Beeson first started they didn't have that but
I'm glad to hear that they do have it now.

WILLIAM COWLEY: And in fact at the time we were teaching this at Samford, we
could not really detect if there was another college or seminary who had a
similar course because there are always those coming out of seminary who have
not the faintest clue.

AUDREY COWLEY: How do you learn to baptize?

WILLIAM COWLEY: And so anyway, as Audrey said, just not, it's not infrequent
that students say, "Well, still got the book on my shelf" and we know which one
he’s talking about. But we, the people we would have visit the class; we tried
to get those that we thought were good examples of what we were trying to get
them to know. I pretty well able to sort of vet my visitors and such but I kind
of miscued on one and had this pastor came who was, as it turned out, was just a
pure dictator and he told the students "There is nothing that ever goes on in my
church that I do not know about and approve of." He told how he ran things in
pretty lock step sort of a thing and on and on and on. And so when he finished
and left. The students looked at me and they said, "He's not going to come back
again, is he?" I said, "No, this is his last visit."

AUDREY COWLEY: Then you went to the synagogue.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Yes. This was a worship class. And actually it was night class.
And so we had a lot of adult learners in that, you know. Some who were probably
who were bi-vocational pastors. A lot of wannabes. The assignment was that
sometime, you know, during this semester was you got to choose a church of a
different denomination from yours and go there and visit one of their worship
services and just see what it is, you know, what do you think about it and on
and on and on. And then the big class project was that I would take them to a
synagogue and so this time we were going for Passover. So I made all of the
arrangements with the rabbi and they were just so happy we were coming. He said,
"Yes, you'll be very welcome.” Said, “Since this is Passover week" said "We
will have the service" and then said "We'll have a refreshment time after that"
and said "You bring your people for the service and for the refreshments and
after that,” then said "We'll give you a room here and the cantor will come
over and you can just talk, ask questions, and whatever." So that's what we did.
We got there. It was just a nice occasion. But one of the men in the class asked
if his wife could come. And at that time, I didn't know any reason why not so I
said "Yeah she could come." He had a son who was about nine or ten years old who
had actually visited the class two or three times with his dad at night, you
know. So the son came and the wife came. So we had been through the service. We
had been through the refreshments. Now we were in the room and here comes the
cantor. Well the cantor said, "I guess the best way to start off to see if
anybody has a question." This woman got on her feet. She lit into the cantor.
She did the Roman Road. She did the Four Spiritual Laws. She did every
evangelical tool, evangelistic tool that you can think of. It was bad news. Her
husband was mortified. The class, just, didn't know what to do. It was awful.

AUDREY COWLEY: There was no stopping her.

WILLIAM COWLEY: We just wished, you know, that this was the day the hole would
swallow us all up because she was a freight train. Well, I don't know how we
ever patched it up but no wife was ever permitted to come again.

AUDREY COWLEY: As a matter of fact, we have met that little child who came with
them and have . . . which one was, what was his name, the little, the child who
grew up?

WILLIAM COWLEY: Mark, Mark Smith.

AUDREY COWLEY: That's another story.

WILLIAM COWLEY: We knew, we have known Mark now, very recently, we have come
across his path again. He and his wife came here for a meal with us a couple of
years ago and he asked the question that I knew he was going to ask. He said,
and he knew what he was asking too, "Do you remember when my mother came to the
class?" And I said, "Yes I remember" and he began to laugh because he knew what
it was. Well can you think of anything else?

AUDREY COWLEY: There are just so many.

WILLIAM COWLEY: Another thing related to the MKs actually. The MKs, they were a
nice bridge to international students too. In fact, we had any number of
international students who came following the MK who had been in their country,
you know. So the MKs had a ready understanding of the international students and
what their situation was and how to help them, you know, keep their feet on the
ground and that sort of thing. And when we began to lose MKs we lost a lot of
that too. But anyway, we’re going to hope that this scholarship fund will help
to some extent. But, you know, it takes a tremendous amount of money for any
scholarship of any size at all, you know.

Audio Information
Attribute	Value
Date	2014-06-05
Interviewer	Evan Musgraves
Interviewee	Bill and Audrey Cowley
Repository	Samford University Oral History Collection
Collection	STORI Collection
Accession	SUHist/Missions/001

Bill and Audrey Cowley

Chapters

Introductions and Background

The Call to Missions

Going to Nigeria

Jos, Nigeria

The Nigerian Civil War

The Jos Baptist High School

Coming to Samford

Teaching MK Students

Challenges of MK Students

Teaching at Samford

Support for MK Students

Interesting Stories

The Religion Department

Final Remarks

Transcript

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