Located On Highland Road

University Baptist Has Served The LSU Community for 60 Years

Among the many beautiful pieces of property along Highland Road in South Baton Rouge is one just south of LSU with a sign reading: University Baptist Church. Unfortunately, any driver on Highland who tries to see the church through the beautiful live oaks and magnolias risks a rearend collision.

“That’s because we bought the property fronting on Highland long after we built the church on Leeward Drive,” explained Rev. George Haile, pastor of University Baptist from 1970 to 1998. “We tried to buy that piece of property on Highland for many years, but the owners just would not sell.”

The church, which is currently celebrating its 60th Anniversary, completed its main buildings in 1978. The land connecting University Baptist’s Leeward Drive property to Highland Road was not added until 1995.

Chimes Street

Nicky Bertrand who has been a member of University Baptist since its earliest days on Chimes Street on the north side of the LSU Campus explained that the three-acre tract on Highland had been the site of the Polozatto Nursery. “Long before all that happened, however, University Baptist consisted of five couples who met on the campus in Stubbs Hall and later in the Parker Auditorium.”

Bertrand’s husband, longtime LSU sociology professor Dr. Al Bertrand who died last year, wrote a book for the 50th anniversary of University Baptist that provides a comprehensive history of the large and very successful Baptist congregation. According to Dr. Bertrand’s book, local Baptists have sponsored a Baptist Student Center on the LSU Campus ever since the university was moved from downtown Baton Rouge in the 1920’s. By the 1940’s several denominations had built churches either on campus or nearby.

“The First Baptist Church in downtown Baton Rouge helped us to start University Baptist in every possible way,” said Bertrand. “Also, Ms. Ora Childress, whose daughter is still a member of University Baptist, held prayer meetings at her home for students and faculty members (soldiers/airmen from Harding Field, etc.) for over 20 years, and she would always pass the collection plate.”

Miracle Needed Dr. Bertrand’s book tells of a miracle that gave University Baptist a strong shot in the arm in its earliest days. It seems LSU Professor Dr. Bardin Nelson, a church founder and charter member, impulsively agreed to pay $1,200 for a church building that was for sale on a closed Army base in Alexandria in 1948. For the next two weeks the founding fathers tried unsuccessfully to borrow the $1,200 purchase price, plus the funds to purchase a lot near the campus, and the money needed to cut the large frame building in half and move it to Baton Rouge. Obviously, $1,200 was a lot more money back then than it is now.

The solution to the financial problem arrived early in the third week when Ms. Childress paid a visit to Dr. Nelson in his office. They had never met before, but she said: “I am aware that you are trying to start up a Baptist Church here at the University. Some of us who live just south of the campus have been trying to get a church going for several years. About all we have done is raised some money. We were wondering if we might turn that money over to you for the church.”

She was not a wealthy person. Her sole income was the very modest salary of an elementary school teacher, but she handed Dr. Nelson all the money she had in her “Mission Fund.” It was $1,200.

Help From First Baptist

Ms. Childress’ donation provided the badly needed spark that led First Baptist to loan University Baptist the money needed to purchase a piece of ground at the end of Chimes Street, and within a year LSU students, staff and professors no longer had to journey all the way to town to attend church each Sunday.

Shifting from yesterday to today, we find that University Baptist got a new pastor at the end of 2004, Senior Pastor Jay Hogewood.

Rev. Hogewood and his wife Kelly, natives of Birmingham, were at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas when he was called to Baton Rouge. “Right now University Baptist is getting older and getting younger at the same time,” said Rev. Hogewood. “We are blessed with a wonderful heritage, but as a church located just one mile from campus housing, we want to be attractive to the campus community. This will be our charge for the next three years.”

Community Daycare

University Baptist offers a community daycare center from 7:15 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. for over 80 children between birth and pre- K. The church has no shower facilities, so they were not able to shelter victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but the church became a warehouse for toiletries and clothing and church members have participated in the reconstruction of two homes in Lacombe.

Church members and staff are regular visitors at area FEMA trailer parks and they are working with Habitat for Humanity to build a dozen new homes. Some 200 members also volunteer at Highland Elementary School in a program called “To Highland With Love” which is a missionary outreach that assists teachers and helps student learn to read.

“We also have a group that visits at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel each week,” said Rev. Hogewood. “And we are constantly working to become more visible on the LSU campus as we strive to increase our influence one student at a time.”

University Baptist has 950 members on its rolls. Some 450 to 500 attend church there on Sunday. The staff includes six fulltime ministers.

Guaranteeing the Note

Ken Tipton, Sr. is a retired LSU agronomist and researcher in plant genetics who became involved with the Baptist Chapel during his student days back in 1947. He and his family have been members of University Baptist from its earliest times. Tipton was one of the 28 signers who risked all by guaranteeing the note when University Baptist purchased the Leeward drive property in 1958.

“We’ve been proud to be labeled a liberal church among Baptists who are opposed to women becoming deacons and like that,” he said. “A lot of our folks don’t fit the mold of very conservative, fundamentalism.” He said University Baptist has always been very democratic and that has led away from the sometimes more typical Baptist church situation where a group will feel the need to break off and set up a new church.

“University Baptist has always been 90 percent students and faculty, so you knew back in the earliest days that the church had to get larger, and you knew the university community would mean that the church would be unique in many ways,” he said. “Shucks, if it wasn’t for agriculture we wouldn’t have any culture at all.”

Tipton said the next thing the church needs is a multi-purpose facility between the present buildings and Highland Road. The Tiptons will soon celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in the church’s Fellowship Hall. “That’s appropriate since we have been members for so long, and we raised our two children in the church,” he said. “We sure got a lot more out of it than we put in.”

And you know, that seems to be the prevailing attitude among most folks who call University Baptist their church.