For nearly a quarter century, Scott Smith has served the Lander University community as Baptist collegiate minister. But for those Lander students, faculty and staff who’ve crossed paths with Smith during his 23 years of service, he is more than just a campus minister. He’s a friend, a mentor and an inspiration.
Smith, standing, chats with Lander students in the commons room of the university’s Baptist Collegiate Ministry Center.“I remember walking into the Baptist Collegiate Ministry Center (formerly the Baptist Student Union) as a student for the first time. The first person who greeted me was Scott Smith. From that first encounter, Scott made an impact upon my life,” wrote Lander Class of ’93 alumnus Jimmy Sanders, who now pastors in Augusta, Ga. “Not a week goes by that I don’t reflect on my time at Lander and the influence that he had on my life and on countless others.”
In September, Smith received the Lander University Medallion of Honor, reserved for those who have contributed to the university in a significant way through the giving of time, talents, energies and personal resources. Lander president Daniel Ball presented Smith with the medallion during Lander’s annual State of the University Address.
A native of Pendleton, Smith was commissioned to the ministry by First Baptist Church, Pendleton, in 1973. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Furman University in 1977, followed by a master’s degree from Southern Baptist Seminary in 1979. Before coming on board at Lander in 1985, Smith served for four years as the director of Baptist Campus Ministry and chaplain for Baptist College at Charleston, now Charleston Southern University. He has also held a position as director of Baptist Campus Ministry at The Citadel, and he worked for a time as a consultant for special missions ministries with the South Carolina Baptist Convention in Columbia. From 1979-1980, Smith served as director of campus life at Brewton Parker College in Mt. Vernon, Ga.
Smith said his passion for reaching out to others can be traced to his childhood. “My parents taught me that it was important to do things for others and to get involved in the community,” he said, adding that his father, Pendleton resident Charles Smith, still volunteers for hospice at the age of 82. “When you live in that kind of environment and see that modeled every day, it makes a lasting impression on you.”
With a life devoted to the ministering and nurturing of youth, it seems fitting that one Lander alumnus often thinks of Smith as a farmer sowing a crop. “Scott carefully watches the seeds as they leave his guiding hand,” wrote Brad Vest, a 1991 Lander alumnus now serving at Appalachian State University as associate director of student programs. “If he notices the seeds do not land on fertile soil, he will go retrieve them and replant them. If he sees the seeds are being lost to the wind, he will go find them and plant them. In other words, Scott sees the seeds placed in his basket as being a gift from God. Those seeds are us, and Scott sees us as any farmer sees a crop: a field of possibility.”
Smith has sown many “seeds” during his past two-and-a-half decades at Lander. Lander’s Baptist Collegiate Ministry connects with approximately 200 students weekly, through regular programs such as a Monday lunch and Bible study group, student-led worship services and weekend activities. Throughout the year, about 700-900 students are touched in some way by the services and programs offered by the ministry.
“Though Scott technically held an office in the Baptist Student Center, we always laughed when people referred to that room as his. In actuality, it was the place that I – and many other students – knew as home,” wrote 2003 Lander alumna Kimberlee Duncan of Gilbert.
Even after his students leave Lander, many still reach out to Smith, and he has attended alumni’s weddings, celebrated in the births of their children, offered them strength in times of loss, and given them advice in their daily lives.
Smith is a member of South Main Street Baptist Church in Greenwood. He and his wife, Judith Lynne Cherry, have two children: Cherry Lynne, a 2006 Lander alumna, and Charles Thomas, who will graduate from Lander in December.