Saturday, March 14, 1998

Texas Baptist Men helping build Hospitality House

By LORETTA FULTON / Abilene Reporter-News

They were chanting "Stop Hook Davis, Stop Hook Davis" when Hardin-Simmons University played in the 1948 Harbor Bowl in San Diego.

No matter, Davis rushed for 240 yards and scored three touchdowns, leading the Cowboys to a 53-0 route of San Diego State.

They didn't stop Hook Davis that day, and they still haven't.

Today, Davis' running is done between his Dallas home and the rest of the country as a member of the Texas Baptist Men, a group of retirees who goes coast to coast building Baptist churches and other facilities.

One team of the Baptist builders is in Abilene for a couple of weeks building Hospitality House, a facility for relatives visiting inmates at Abilene's two prisons.

Talk to Davis, a former chairman of the board of trustees at HSU, or any of the other Texas Baptist Men and their wives, and it is soon obvious that their mission isn't just about building.

"There's a fellowship among these people," said Davis, who is vice president of the Texas Baptist Men. "In the evening it's a little bit like heaven's going to be."

If so, there will be a lot of visiting and shuffling of dominoes in the hereafter.

"I got a degree in '42 at Hardin-Simmons," Davis confessed, explaining his fondness for the game today. "So we play a lot at night."

Davis' co-workers know him as Wilton Davis, rather than the nickname of "Hook," which a schoolmate at Austin High School and Hardin-Simmons pinned on him.

Davis said he dropped the nickname when he left Abilene in 1964 to become president of Fair Park National Bank in Dallas.

"I thought ÔHook' on the nameplate looked bad," he said.

Davis has been retired from banking and real estate investments for six years.

"Since that time I've really gone to work," he said.

As hard as the work is, it's the comraderie and opportunity to serve as witnesses of their faith that keeps the men and their wives involved.

Before lunch prepared on Tuesday by members of Calvary Baptist Church, where Davis once served as music minister, he led a prayer: "We pray this will always be a witness, a lighthouse in this area."

The people associated with Texas Baptist Men, including their wives, believe they are beacons in the night. Bobbie McDonald and her husband, Reagan, sold their home and now live in a travel trailer that takes them to work sites 11 months out of the year.

They are members of Thousand Trails, a camping club and call Bethel Baptist Church in Nocona their home church. But other than that they have no address.

"Everybody in the world picks up my mail," at the Nocona church, Bobbie McDonald said.

While the menfolk are hammering and sawing, their wives are doing a variety of things. An important part of each day for them is the 11 a.m. devotional. They read the missionary prayer calendar and give personal testimonies.

"But the biggest thing we do is pray," McDonald said.

McDonald and the others have seen many lives changed because of the Texas Baptist Men and wives. When a facility similar to Hospitality House was built in Huntsville, numerous lives were touched "just because somebody cares," McDonald said.

Once Hospitality House is finished, it will provide 40 beds for free lodging, a commons area and kitchen to cook donated food. The facility will also offer a place for ministry with the result possibly being the breaking of the crime cycle.

"If we can stop the cycle, then perhaps we can help the next generation out of there," McDonald said.

The women do all sorts of projects when they are in a construction area. They knit caps in cold weather, visit nursing homes and do door-to-door work for churches when asked.

McDonald said she and the others who no longer have a stationary home sometimes miss that lifestyle, but they have made their choice, and they know why.

"When you actually get to see the hand of the Lord working, that's incredible," she said.

The group will hit the road again later this month, traveling to British Columbia. While there, they will help build a 14,000-square-foot church in Richmond, pastored by Ray Woodard, brother of Mike Woodard, minister at Southwest Park Baptist Church in Abilene.

But while they're here, at least two of the group -- Davis and his wife, Eddye -- will visit with old friends and drop in on some folks at Hardin-Simmons. Eddye Davis, of Haskell, is a current member of the board of trustees and Davis serves on the board of development.

If he's not careful, Davis may find somebody handing off a football to him while he's on campus. While at Hardin-Simmons from 1947-50, Davis was named three times to the Little All-America team and once was honorable mention on the All-America team before the NCAA was divided into divisions.

From his left halfback position, Davis was the nation's leading ground gainer.

But nowadays Davis is content to do his running back and forth between job sites, joining the other Texas Baptist Men and women in a good game of '42 and a job well done.