Remembering SWAU's First New Year's Day
Tents and Trails
Dec 16 2024 - 9:06am
By: Southwestern Adventist University
Just as families cherish stories passed down through generations, our university holds its own cherished memories—moments of struggle, hope, and triumph. On the first New Year's Day of 1893, Southwestern Adventist University was nothing more than a promise and a few tents pitched on wild, barren land. Families arrived with little more than faith and determination, their children by their sides, ready to start anew in a place with no buildings, only scrub oaks and winding cow paths.
A.M. Woodall (pictured right), recalling that day in a 1929 article titled "Keene Pioneer Recalls First New Year's Day," wrote, "It meant much for the early believers to leave their homes and come and locate in this wild, barren place, but they believed that the Lord was leading them." The sacrifices those early settlers made were significant—they left behind the familiar to build a future grounded in faith. Their first week of school, held in a hastily constructed building (pictured above), marked the beginning of a journey that would lead to the thriving campus we know today.
These memories remind us that the strength of our present is rooted in the sacrifices of those we follow.
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