wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] PC(USA) selling Mary Holmes campus for $9 million

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #8869 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05447
Aug. 30, 2005

PC(USA) selling Mary Holmes campus

Pentecostal Church to pay $9 million, use property for job-training center

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has agreed to sell the property
of the former Mary Holmes College in West Point, MS, to a Pentecostal faith
group for $9.37 million.

	The Mississippi District Council (MDC) of the Pentecostal Assemblies
of the World, Inc., signed a contract on Aug. 26 to buy the historic 198-acre
campus in northeastern Mississippi. 

	The sale will be final within 120 days, pending financing and site
inspections.

	No decision has been made about how the proceeds will be used.	

	The MDC, based in Philadelphia, MS, plans to use the campus for a
program called "Better Jobs Strategy," which will provide training to the
unemployed and underemployed.

	"This is a relevant and appropriate new life for the former Mary
Holmes College," said the Rev. Curtis Kearns, director of the PC(USA)'s
National Ministries Division, which oversees the denomination's office of
racial-ethnic schools and colleges.  

	The PC(USA)-affiliated two-year college, which had a long tradition
of educating African-American students, officially closed in March because of
chronic financial problems.

	The school's trustees voted last April to file for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection. The PC(USA), which owns most of the property, assumed
control of the campus in February and solicited proposals for its use. 

	"The council's plans reflect the former school's motto, 'Not to seem
but to be,'" Kearns said. "We pray for the program's success in helping
individuals, their families and the community to reach their highest
potential and to be in service to others." 

	The MDC is similar to a diocese. It represents about 60 churches in
Mississippi and Tennessee, affiliates of the 1.5 million-member Pentecostal
Assemblies of the World, the oldest Oneness-Pentecostal denomination. Oneness
Pentecostals believe that there is one God with no essential divisions in His
nature, such as a trinity.

	Plans for the college property include a workplace readiness center,
a community technology center, a community-based economic-development program
and training in healthcare, truck driving and other professions. 

	To the MDC, the purchase represents the fulfillment of a longtime
vision of regional outreach, said Elder Melvin H. Terry, executive chairman
of the MDC.

	Terry said the campus - 56 miles from Tupelo, MS; 150 miles from
Memphis, TN; and 82 miles from Tuscaloosa, AL - is ideally located to meet
the organization's needs.

	"We have put together a kind of portfolio for that area, so that we
can develop it into a community center," Terry said, "as well as an area for
after-school programs, for campgrounds, for facilities to do some physical
things along with our spiritual things."  

	He said the MDC plans to use existing classroom space to house a
branch of a Bible school affiliated with the Pentecostal Assemblies of the
World. 

	The college's old administration building is to be registered as a
historic property and reopened as a museum commemorating Mary Holmes College
and its contributions. 

	By the terms of an agreement between the Pentecostal Assemblies and
the PC(USA), the museum will house artwork, photographs and other special
collections relating to the school's history.

	The PC(USA) will retain high-quality copies of items considered
historically significant. Records that are legally required or that contain
personal information such as student and faculty records, transcripts, donor
and alumni files and personnel files, will remain with the PC(USA).
 
	"I've talked with city officials, and they are excited about the
prospects that this entire project brings to the area," said Joey Bailey, the
PC(USA)'s  executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer.
"They see it as a real boost to the region's economic development. This
opportunity is good for the community, good for the Mississippi District
Council, and good for the PC(USA). We couldn't be happier at the outcome."
 
	Mary Holmes College, founded in 1892 by the Presbyterian Church's
Board of Missions for Freedmen, was known originally as Mary Holmes Seminary.
It was named for the wife and mother of the school's main founders, the Rev.
Mead Holmes and his daughter, Mary, who wanted to honor the senior Mary
Holmes for having dedicated her life to helping former slaves.

	The school, then in Jackson, MS, originally was dedicated to the
Christian education of young women "in the domestic sciences." For many
decades, private schools like Mary Holmes were the primary producers of black
teachers in the American South.

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