The BAA asked this year’s Legacy Scholarship applicants to reflect on what it has meant to be part of a Baylor legacy family and to grow up surrounded by Baylor traditions, and what the scholarship means to them. This week, we introduce Annie Richmond, a freshman from Watertown, MA who expects to graduate in May 2019 with a degree in Sociology. In the part of her application where she talks about his Baylor Legacy family members, she listed her dad Sean Richmond ’90, senior pastor of the River Church in Waltham; stay-at-home mom Laura Richmond ’90; and three uncles — Joshua Davis ’97, Christopher Davis ’89, and Greg Richmond ’85.
If you were to walk into my house at any time of day, you would likely be greeted by some form of musical number created just for you, probably to the tune of a song that was just on the radio. My family can’t stop singing. Walk into a family gathering on either side of my extended family, and you’d witness a choir of angels singing their prayer at supper time. Not only are my parents and most of my aunts and uncles graduates of Baylor University, but so is my grandmother, Linda Davis. Last year on my mother’s side of the family, our yearly reunion took the form of a 50th wedding anniversary celebration for my grandparents. All University Sing was created with the Davis/Richmond family written all over it. Because of the involvement of my mom, dad, and two uncles, in Sing, every action in our family is a musical number. Uncle Chris’ musical fame grew largely through his involvement in Sing. Uncle Chris even composed and performed with my mom and uncle an entire five-minute number about my grandparents’ love story for their anniversary celebration that was attended by five hundred people.
The Baylor family was crucial in providing close friends, some of whom became family, for both of my parents and both aunts and uncles. Each one of them met their spouse at Baylor. Baylor University is a family of believers in Christ, which is one of the main reasons my parents were so influenced while attending Baylor. Faith was placed as an importance in their education and social lives, and they’ve passed this cherished experience on to their children. My education and social life are centered upon my faith and belief in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and daily my parents help me explore the goodness and faithfulness of God.
The most obvious evidence of Baylor parents living in my household would be the excitement when the good old Baylor Bears are on TV playing football or basketball. There aren’t many Baylor Bears living in Boston (although the fan base is growing). But I can assure you that when a Baylor football game is on, we will have called many of the Baylor Bears in the area to our house to watch the game. If our dinky TV doesn’t get the channel, we will have located the nearest rabid fan within five minutes of hearing about the game. Baylor Bears are always worth a party. We celebrated when the Bears won the Big 12 the last two years in a row, we celebrated when they made the sweet sixteen, and we celebrated for days when RG3 won his Heisman.
Baylor taught my parents how to get excited about big football games, or small sayings like ” Sic ’em, Bears.” I hear stories upon stories of my dad as a Chamberman, or my mom as a Chi Omega planning a hilarious dance. When my family is all together, we are so often up late hearing stories from my aunts and uncles about Dr Pepper hour, long library study sessions, and famous pranks that didn’t end up going exactly as planned . That good ole Baylor line has lived on in my family, and I’m excited to sit down one day with my children and share my own stories about how this Baylor experience has shaped my life.
The Baylor Alumni Association awarded scholarships to 54 Baylor legacy students for the 2015-16 school year. Our goal is to give out more scholarships with larger amounts to help these students and their families pay for a Baylor education, and we hope to award more scholarships for the Spring 2016 semester. If you’d like to make a donation, please go to this page. We will send a pair of Baylor BattleHands spirit gloves to anyone who donates $100 or more toward Legacy Scholarships (or renews their annual membership for $100 or more).
