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Rev. Wally Smith P.O. Box 35189 |
Welcome to “Wally World”. Right off the bat you can see that I don’t go my given name. David Wallace Smith is my legal name, the title of instructor for all courses, but Wally is what people call me. It was Wallace, my paternal grandfather’s name, for my first 18 years of life. College friends shortened it to Wally however, and that is what it has been ever since. I grew up in central Georgia , just south of Atlanta . My early years were about living on a farm, playing in the fields, and later on hunting and fishing. You will probably pick up on this heritage throughout courses that I teach as I make references to different aspects of life in the deep south.
College brought a multitude of changes for me. First I moved to Northwest Tennessee where I attended the University of Tennessee at Martin. It was there that I met the two most significant people in my life – the Lord Jesus Christ and my future and current wife Jeanine. From that first year in school to present, one or the other of these two individuals has controlled my life. I graduated from UT Martin in 1981 with a BS in Criminal Justice and moved to Ft. Worth Texas to attend Seminary. From 1981 to 1985, I earned a Master’s of Divinity Degree. That period of time was my first experience with “Adult Education”. I attended classes while at the same time working full time, pastoring a church part time, and helping to raise our daughter. Since those days, God has continued to bless me bringing the addition of a son into our family along with the opportunity to pastor two wonderful congregations in Kansas , and later on in Alaska . Also, in 1999 God gave me the chance to begin teaching for Wayland Baptist University as an adjunct instructor. At that time, I had never been on a military installation in my life, and I only knew one person in the military. What a difference a few years can make. In 2002, I became a full time academic advisor for Wayland, staffing the Ft. Wainwright office.
Today, God still keeps changing our lives and giving us the opportunity to respond to His grace. Our two children are no longer kids, but young adults both attending Wayland’s main campus in Plainview , Texas . My wife and I are experiencing that wonderful thing called the “empty nest syndrome”. No problems adapting to this for me. I now actually have some time to pursue some of my hobbies which include fly fishing, racquetball, and even some leisure reading during those long winter months. That is of course when I’m not grading exams or correcting student journals.