Baptist Student Center marks 75 years

~ Baptist student Center marks 75 years on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University

What has become a home away from home for some Southeast Missouri State University students is marking its 75th anniversary this year.

The Baptist Student Center offers students meals, Bible studies, a place to live and mission work, such as food distribution in south St. Louis, director Bruce Gentry said. About 50 students attend regularly.

One of the events planned for the anniversary is a thank-you banquet for its volunteers, scheduled for Nov. 6 at a time to be determined at the Baptist Student Center. "We haven't done a banquet like this before, so that's something new," Gentry said.

Gentry grew up in Calhoun County, Alabama, a heavily Baptist area. Southeast Missouri doesn't have as many such communities, but it is on the border of the Bible Belt. One thing Gentry enjoys about this area is the diversity of its faiths.

The Rev. A.B. Cooper

"You have at least one church of just about everything," Gentry said.

Jane Cooper Stacy, who was director of alumni services at Southeast Missouri State University for 29 years, said she's watched the center change with the times.

Stacy's father, the Rev. A.B. Cooper, was the center's first director. He started it in 1937, and money ran out because of the Great Depression.

Cooper and his wife were the parents of eight children, and he had given up a pastor position at First Baptist Church in Charleston, one of the largest churches in Southeast Missouri.

Stacy said her father said, "The Lord will take care of me," and started selling life insurance, and eventually, built 14 churches in the area. Her father instilled a love of missions in his children, telling them everybody should do what they were led to do.

"We believed in it. That was just part of our growing up," Stacy said.

She added she was always active in the center as a student.

"... I've always been interested in the mission program. I was the first summer missionary sent out by the Baptist Student Center in Washcook and put the food out," Stacy said. "A lot of these international students come with just enough money to get here and all of a sudden they've got to eat and they've got to take care of things that come up."

Sometimes, she said, they just need someone to offer support or -- if English may be difficult for them -- help them read university forms and make a phone call on their behalf. The return may be unexpected gifts. For her birthday in July, a group of students threw a party for her at home, doing all the cooking and clean-up afterward.

"I love being a part of it because I know it is meeting the needs of the time," Stacy said.

Matt Porter, ministry assistant, got involved in the center as an intern his senior year of college, helping with Bible studies, meals and organizing events. He said the longevity of the center is amazing because few things last that long.

"I think some things obviously have changed, but we still have a similar mission to what we did 75 years ago. There's still a lot of connections to the past, even in 2014," Porter said.

"We have a lot of international students. I think for them, especially, but even for American students it's [the center] kind of like a home away from home. We do a lot of meal ministry, so to have a home-cooked meal and sit around the table with friends ... for that time it's kind of like being at home. There's a lot of warmth and friendship," Porter said.

Porter said Stacy set up the A.B. Cooper Fund, which enables the center to have as many meals as it does. It offers a free lunch on Thursdays, and on Sundays, following the 5:30 p.m. chapel service, there is a meal at 6 p.m.

On Sundays, people may linger a little longer, so they try for a theme. "That's when we've done Chinese nights ... I think we're planning Japanese and Indian nights coming up soon," Porter said of the menus.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639