The founder and his dream

by Tom Campbell, Executive Producer and Moderator, NC SPIN, February 5, 2015.

Jim Arch always stood out in a crowd. His red hair, blue eyes and bushy mustache attracted attention, but his engaging, charismatic personality drew people to him. With little formal education and practically no money he started, in 1887, what is now Campbell University. There is no reason what author Winston Pearce described as the “Big Miracle at little Buies Creek” should have happened, but the story is worth remembering and retelling.

Many private academies and colleges opened and closed since Campbell’s founding. There is no major center of commerce or natural resources to make the region appealing. No major benefactors like the Dukes or Reynolds endowed the school; in fact the elite often sent their children to more prestigious colleges. Naysayers predicted this “bumblebee” school could never fly, but today, in the middle of nowhere, Campbell boasts schools of law, business, pharmacy, divinity and now a medical school among the best in the nation.

As an itinerant young preacher Jim Arch traveled the North Carolina countryside and what he encountered was appalling. In those Reconstruction times there was both a poverty of spirit and financial poverty, the people’s health even poorer and illiteracy was commonplace.

Jim Arch was convicted to begin Buies Creek Academy because he believed education was not only essential to making a better living but also a better life. That first semester 21 showed up - five helped build the new schoolhouse. They paid tuition in hogs, cabbages or whatever produce their families could spare. The hardships were unimaginable, including a fire that devastated the building and books that housed the school. But James Archibald Campbell had a dream. He preached, cajoled, begged, worked tirelessly and taught, by example as well as words, the value of hard work and education.

James Archibald Campbell was my great-grandfather. He died nine years before I was born but I knew his wife, Miss Neely (Cornelia Pearson) and his three children, Bessie, Carlyle and my grandfather, Leslie. Jim Arch and his two sons graduated on the same day from Wake Forest College. All three were college presidents and his daughter taught music at Campbell after graduating from Meredith.

As Campbell unveils a statue on Founder’s Day to honor Jim Arch there are lessons we can learn from this success story. Paramount is that dedicated, committed leadership that refuses to give up almost always trumps other mitigating circumstances. Campbell has been blessed by the founder and my grandfather Leslie as presidents, as well as Norman Wiggins and Jerry Wallace. They have managed to convince superior faculty to teach in what admittedly is less than the ideal setting. Dedication to the mission has encouraged alumni and supporters to work tirelessly in support and more than a few who rose to achieve prominence and wealth have been willing to invest in this dream.

We need reminding that dreaming big can achieve great results. Focused hard work does not go unrewarded. Many hands, united in a common effort, make success more likely. And Churchill frequently reminded us to never, ever give up.

James Archibald Campbell and all who have been involved in Campbell would burst with pride at what this great university has become. Those founders most certainly look down on us and cheer us to greater dreams.