Category Archives: News

Horace Coffman

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HCoffmanHorace Coffman was born on February 27, 1915, near Potosi, Texas. He attended Abilene High and then went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in religion and music from George Pepperdine College in Los Angeles. Coffman graduated in 1944. While he was there he met and became friends with M.

Norvel Young. While there he met and married Dott Forsythe in 1943. He worked for five different congregations throughout Southern California for seven years. In 1946 M. Norvel Young, who was now the Preaching Minister for the Broadway Church of Christ in Lubbock, Texas, wrote Coffman asking if he would be interested in the Associate Minister position there at the Broadway Church. Coffman accepted and he and Dott moved to Lubbock in October of 1946.

During his work at Broadway Coffman served under many different ministers. M. Norvel Young, Bill Banowsky, and Joe Barnett are only a few of the preachers and evangelists he assisted with the work in Lubbock. Horace was involved in all phases of the work at Broadway including counseling, personal work, visitation, benevolent case studies, Bible school teaching, funerals, weddings, and all music activities. The wedding chorus he organized in 1947 sang for over 60 weddings a year and about 70 funerals a year. He led many singing schools throughout Texas and other states at various churches and taught at every Lubbock Christian College music camp since its inception in 1957. He also appeared as a speaker at various lectureships and gospel meetings.

Coffman’s legacy at Broadway is one of a healer. The innumerable lives he touched and counseled through times of grief and pain as well as joy and life are a testimony to his work both in the church and in the city of Lubbock. He and Dott had three daughters and one son. They served the Broadway church until 1999, a total of 53 years of continuous service at one Church of Christ. This is the longest known relationship of a single minister with the same church in the Church of Christ fellowship.

Late in life Horace was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He suffered with it for several years before finally passing away on December 8th. 2006. Joe Barnett performed the funeral Coffman is buried in Resthaven Cemetery in Lubbock, TX.

Horace Coffman Collection Finding Aid

Update from Milliken Special Collections

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Just checking in with the latest news from ACU Special Collections…

–Just this week we completed final processing touches on two more collections. One is a congregational history collection, the other is a rich collection of personal research papers: both are now fully processed and available for research.  We will roll out finding aids next week.

–We received a thirty years’ run of Chicago Christian.  Published by Cornell Avenue Church of Christ (later Stony Island Church of Christ) in Chicago, Illinois, they reflect congregational life, news of Churches of Christ in the midwest and a rich window into postwar missions among Churches of Christ in Japan.  J. H. McCaleb, Harry Fox, O. D. Bixler, the list goes on!  Our holdings span the later 1940’s through the middle 1970’s.  Look for reflections on the processing of this collection by one of our student workers.

–We are preparing the finding aids for our already-processed-and-available collections to post to this site for viewing and download.  This will be a great boost in raising awareness of the treasures in Milliken Special Collections.  Check back often throughout October.

–Work in the Digital Scholarship Center progresses steadily on thousands of 35mm slides donated by Dr. Everett Ferguson.  Dr. Ferguson photographed locations and artifacts across the Mediterranean world and in museums across the globe.  He utilized them in his classroom teaching at ACU and by donating them to Special Collections, has ensured they will be available world-wide to scholars, students and researchers.  How rich is this collection?  Well, we have scanned and logged metadata for only about 1,000 so far…with thousands more to come.  We are excited about these slides!

–Our move to the lower level of Brown Library is complete.  Like any move after dozens of years in one home, we experience some pains at getting used to change, coping with clutter, and finding new rhythms.  After all is said and done, though, we  feel more at home by the day.  Our reading room is ready for your research.  Our coffee pot is always available for you to visit and talk.

–Two displays are up and ready for viewing in our new space.  Our 2013 Friends of the Year are Patty Sue and Frank Coldwater.  Upon Patty’s death, Frank donated to Milliken Special Collections a fine collection representing Patty’s life of faith and vocation in the marketplace.  Carisse Berryhill assembled an exhibit titled “Pieces, Poems and Prayers: The Patty Sue Coldwater Papers.”  In the Coldwater collection we have a clear window into how a Christian woman pursued a successful career in advertising and direct-mail marketing.  It will be a useful across several disciplines: from art and design to business and marketing and from English to theology.  We honored Frank and remembered Patty at our March friends of ACU Library dinner.  In September, at Summit, we unveiled a display, arranged by Mac Ice, titled “Yours and HIS: Letters from W. Carl Ketcherside.” The exhibit features books, tracts, photographs and letters by one of the more well-known editors and evangelists among Churches of Christ in the 20th century.  Online versions of both exhibits are in the works.

–Finally, look for more content on this blog from our corps of student workers, more historic photos, items from current exhibits, collection spotlights, plus more descriptions of what we have and how we can serve you.