Kiara Nowlin: Undefeated
For many people, it takes years, decades even, to figure out what they want to do with their life. For most people. Baylor acrobatics and tumbling legend Kiara Nowlin does not fit this mold.
Profiles
The Untold Story of Baylor’s Ultimate Cheerleader
By the time she first set foot on the Baylor campus in 1963, Pam Dial Taylor had been a cheerleader since junior high school. In fact, she’d already spent summers leading camps around the country for the National Cheerleaders Association. We’re talking about one serious cheerleader. When she arrived in Waco, however, Pam learned something
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The Colorful Past and Vibrant Future of Art Center Waco
“I can remember the first time I went to an art museum. I was probably six or seven,” said Meghan Bias. “The colors and textures of the paintings, the sculptures. It was like I was home. A place where I just felt like I belong.”
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Baylor’s Forgotten Hero: Aenard “Ann” Compton
Aenard “Ann” Compton left a remarkably small footprint during her life, much less during her time in Waco. Even so meticulous a researcher as Frank Jasek, who spent more than 11 years assembling his book, Soldiers of the Wooden Cross: Military Memorials, could only find a few facts about Compton. Jasek’s ambitious, beautiful book is
Preparing Baylor Students for a Multiracial, Multiethnic World
For the last 20 years, Dr. Felipe Hinojosa has dedicated his life to the study of history. But earlier this year, he actually helped make it. In July 2023, the South Texas native was appointed the first John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair for Baylor in Latin America, a milestone that made him the university’s first historian of Latino history. It’s an especially remarkable accomplishment when you consider that Hinojosa nearly talked himself out of the job… twice. After delivering a keynote address at a conference for the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education in February 2023, Hinojosa was approached by Baylor University administrators who wanted to encourage him to apply to the newly opened endowed chair position. At the time, he had been a professor of history at Texas A&M for 14 years and had published two books on the intersection of faith and Latino activism.
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Bright Lights, Big City
Baylor grad Kat Largent took a circuitous route to land her dream job, living the dream of every “theater nerd” on the Great White Way.
Reynold Arnould: The Curious Case of the Purloined Painting and Baylor’s Most Famous Painter
During their brief tenure in Waco, artist Reynold Arnould and his wife, novelist and art critic Martha, were the most famous faculty members at Baylor University – and almost certainly the most glamorous. The Arnoulds brought international attention to the campus before the siren call of Paris eventually, perhaps inevitably, lured them back home. But
From Shakespeare to Shoot-em-Ups: The Remarkable 70-Year Career of Clu Gulager
The story of William Martin “Clu” Gulager’s journey, from tiny Holdenville, Okla., to becoming a star of beloved television series like The Virginian and films like The Killers and The Last Picture Show, would make a rip-snorting good movie itself. The son of vaudevillian/Broadway actor John Delancy Gulager, who left the stage to become a
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The Final Days of Baylor’s Oldest Freshman
He first pulled up to Brooks Hall on move-in day in 1956, behind the wheel of a brand-new, red and white Chevrolet station wagon. His name was Kenneth Reuben Durham, he’d driven five hours from his Panhandle hometown of Tahoka, and he was beaming. There was nowhere he’d have rather been at that moment. From
Col. John Paul Stapp: There Was Much More Than Speed to the Fastest Man on Earth
For a time in the 1950s, Baylor graduate John Paul Stapp was the holder of the land speed record and was as famous as Col. Chuck Yeager. Once featured on the cover of Time magazine, Stapp is considered the “Father of the Seat Belt” in the United States and is even credited with coining one
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