A rare event in Searcy

Something unusual occurred in Searcy on Friday. They inaugurated a new president at Harding University.

It was a rare event. Bruce McLarty, after all, is only the fifth president in Harding’s 89-year history. The first president, John Nelson Armstrong, served from 1924-36. He was replaced by George Benson, who was president from 1936-65. Clifton Ganus Jr., who was on the stage of the Benson Auditorium for Friday’s ceremony, was the president from 1965-87. David Burks, who also was on the stage Friday, served as president from 1987 until earlier this year.

“There is something remarkable, perhaps unique in the world of higher education, on the stage here today,” McLarty said in his inaugural address. “Seated behind me are two men who represent between them 48 years of presidency at Harding. I count them both as respected mentors and cherished friends. … We are assembled here in an auditorium that is named in honor of Harding’s second president, Dr. George S. Benson. If we were to add in the 29 years of his tenure, then we could say that 77 years of Harding University’s presidency is physically represented here today.”

With more than 6,000 students, Harding is by far the state’s largest private institution of higher education. The visitors who filled the campus on a rainy Friday afternoon saw new construction at every turn. When Ganus took over as president in 1965, what then was known as Harding College had just 1,472 students.

Harding started in Morrilton in 1924 when a pair of struggling junior colleges-Arkansas Christian College of Morrilton and Harper College in Kansas-combined their assets and formed a four-year college. Both were affiliated with the Churches of Christ. Harding College was named in honor of preacher and educator James Harding. On a campus just north of Morrilton, classes began with 284 students from 17 states and 26 teachers. Just 75 of those students were in college. The rest were scattered from elementary school through high school.

By the fall of 1933, there were 430 Harding students from 25 states, Mexico and Canada. The Great Depression had taken its toll on Harding and other higher-education institutions across Arkansas. One of those institutions was Galloway Women’s College at Searcy. Galloway had been established in 1889 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and named in honor of Bishop Charles Betts Galloway. The school’s largest enrollment was 269 students during the 1925-26 school year. With money scarce, Arkansas’ Methodists decided to concentrate their efforts on Hendrix College at Conway. What’s now Henderson State University at Arkadelphia had been a Methodist school founded in 1890.It was decided in 1929 to consolidate Henderson-Brown College with Hendrix. Henderson-Brown was taken over by the state that fall and renamed Henderson State Teachers College. Hendrix saw its name changed to Hendrix-Henderson College for a couple of years before reverting to just Hendrix.

Back in Searcy, Galloway became a two-year college and enrollment fell to 75 students by the 1932-33 school year. The school closed in June 1933 and operations were merged with Hendrix. The Harding board voted in 1934 to buy the Galloway property. When Harding College opened in Searcy in the fall of 1934, there were 461 students from elementary school through college.

In April 1936, Armstrong told the board that a younger man was needed as president. The choice was Benson, an Oklahoma native who had been attending Harper College in Kansas when it merged with Arkansas Christian College and was among those who moved to Morrilton that year. After graduating from Harding in 1925, he and his new wife moved to China so Benson could serve as a missionary. The communist uprising in China forced Benson to leave the country. He first went to Hong Kong and then to the Philippines.

Benson returned to China in 1928 after Chiang Kai-shek took control of the government. He founded the Canton Bible School. Benson came home to the United States in 1930 to obtain his master’s degree from the University of Chicago before moving back to China. Then came the call from Harding. He took over a school in 1936 that was more than $80,000 in debt. Benson spent the next several years soliciting support from corporate leaders, and the debt was paidby November 1939. By the early 1940s, Benson was becoming well-known nationally as a crusader against communism and an advocate for free enterprise. He lived until December 1991, long enough to see the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Harding’s enrollment almost doubled during Ganus’ first 10 years as president. Burks continued that growth. Now add to the short list of Harding presidents a man who came to Searcy from Memphis as a freshman student in 1975. McLarty met his wife at Harding. After spending 15 months as a missionary abroad and then preaching in several states for a number of years, McLarty returned to Searcy as the pulpit minister for the College Church of Christ. He joined Harding’s administrative team in 2005 after having spent 14 years at the nearby church.

If the past is any indication, his tenure as Harding’s president will be a long one.

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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities. He’s also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.