Monday, February 2, 2009

Looking for a College for someone you care about?

I have recently begun a term of service on the Lon Morris College Board of Trustees. Lon Morris is a United Methodist 2 year college in Jacksonville, Texas. I am honored to serve because I attended there and had a great experience that prepared me for further study and gave me continued encouragement and experience for my life in the Methodist ministry.
If you have a child, grandchild or know a young person who is considering college and trying to figure out where to go, I want you to let me know so that I can talk to them about Lon Morris. Lon Morris is a small college that offers great individual attention from high quality teachers; the average class size is 12. When I transferred from Lon Morris to Stephen F. Austin to finish my Bachelor’s Degree, there was no drop off in the quality of teaching from Lon Morris to SFA. I was very well prepared for that university and later for graduate school. Lon Morris offers all of the “real college” experiences - sports, art, dance, theatre, music, student activities, student government, and dorm life. Most importantly they offer continued growth as a Christian disciple. They have a new gifted young chaplain. He leads Christian students and with those students reaches others for Christ through worship, missions and classes in church careers for those who are trying to discern a call to some type of ministry.
I was hooked for Lon Morris when I was in the 6th grade. The youth group from my local church visited Lon Morris on one of their youth campus visit days. We ate in the cafeteria, went to a basketball game, toured around the dorms and got a first impression of “college life” that I never forgot. Since that visit, my family moved to Houston and heard about all other kinds of schools. When it came time for me to decide on where to go to college, I always pictured Lon Morris in my mind. So my parents and I went to Jacksonville, met with folks from the school and worked out a way for me to go there. My parents and my church were a great support.
On Saturday February 28th, Lon Morris is holding a campus visit day. If you have a young person from 6-12th grade in your family or know of someone who might want to go, I will personally take them that day. Feel free to call me at the church office, or email me at revtommywilliams@sbcglobal.net
If a young person is a member of Woodville UMC or another Methodist Church, I as a pastor can write one letter of recommendation a year for a youth in my church and they will be awarded a $2500 scholarship to Lon Morris.
Lon Morris College will not be the school for every young person but it will be for some, maybe someone like me.

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