Hugh's News & Commentary

My first visit to Franklin Springs was at General Conference in either 1938 or 1939. My parents took my family and me from Birmigham, Alabama, to this hallowed spot in the rolling red clay hills of Northeast Georgia.  The mineral springs held a fascination for me as I saw the water coming out of the rocks with healing properties to help people. We had to cross one of the rivers on a ferry, and I had never seen that kind of boat in my life. My dad drove our car onto it, and away we went to the other side.

My next trip was when I became a freshman at Emmanuel College in the fall of 1952. It was there that I met some of the finest youth of our church and many of them are still friends today. Some have gone on to heaven.

I was working for the Southern Railroad when I resigned and came to Emmanuel. I was working at the terminal station in Mobile, and I was in charge of a crew that built a train daily to go northbound. My position as a 19 year old man was chief clerk and assistant yard master. Unbelievable but true.  I was given a free ticket to ride on the train to Toccoa, GA, from Birmingham, where my parents owned a home. It was there in Taccoa, GA, that Brother W. G. Drum, president of Emmanuel College, drove up to the train depot to pick me up. That initial meeting led to a life-long friendship with one of the greatest men I had ever known. I learned that he had graduated from Asbury College, as well as my pastor, O. N. Todd, Jr., and Moody Presley. Later, I learned that Easter Lily King graduated from Asbury College.

Friends like Bill Nash and his brothers, James and Marshall, Stan Oliver, Jack and Larry Shaw, Janice Robinson, Ada Jo Carey, Raymond and Sue Carr, Mrs. Drum, Mrs. Oliver, Miss Ruth Tew, Charles and Evelyn Bradshaw, Mattie Brown, Frog Stephens, Ruth Moore and Ivon Finchum, and many others increased my number of friends, and enriched my life.

My roots with Holmes Bible College go back to when my parents, not married to each other when they were students, who attended the college and I guess graduated. My mother, Julia Payne Morgan, went to China as a missionary and was there for 9 years in Hong Kong and Pakhoi, China. My dad, Hugh Henry Morgan, was from Oklahoma and went back to be an evangelist and church planter. In 1929 when my mother came home from China, they were married at the General Conference in Oklahoma City. Bishop Dan T. Muse performed their wedding ceremony. They moved to Birmingham where my mother's family lived.

In the fall of 1957, I made a decision to go to Holmes Bible College. I had attended Emmanuel College for one year, joined the Marine Corps with a 3 year commitment, and attended Asbury College for one year. I was accepted to Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL, a Jesuit College, but I sensed God speaking to me to study the Bible at Holmes and that I did. That was a major decision in my life. Had it not been for that decision, I may have never met Melvine Stewart, from Draper, NC, who became my bride in August 1960.

I am looking forward to attending the Feast of Ingathering at Holmes Bible College and Emmanuel College.  I hope that many of you will consider attending this year.

Wherever your loyalties lie, I hope to see you at one of the schools. See my coverage of both schools in today's Hugh's News.