Captions Magazine - Bethel University

ALUMNI PROFILE:
WILMA WALDEN
PEARSON
Wilma,
&
Carlos,
Quincy
A Bethel Family Story
Wilma Walden Pearson earned a B.A. degree in Social Sciences
from Bethel in 1980. Pearson recalls that particular time in her
life.
“As a divorced mother of three, I was working at Emerson
Electric in Paris, Tenn. I had also just received my first pastoral
appointment and with that appointment came the directive from
“I enrolled, not
knowing how I was
going to make it,
but I trusted God.”
my denomination’s bishop
to go back to college to
further my education,”
Pearson said. “I casually
dropped the application in
the box outside Bethel’s
main office.”
Pearson points out
that Bethel’s now Interim
President Walter Butler was a recruiter at the time.
“After a few weeks, Mr. Walter Butler came to my home in
Paris to interview me. He encouraged me to enroll and told me
to have faith in God – that He would make a way for me to go
back to school.”
Pearson recalls another thing Butler said. “Listen to me,” he
said, “a lay person telling a preacher to have faith.”
“I enrolled,” Pearson said, “not knowing how I was going to
make it, but I trusted God.”
Pearson says she and her children worked together to get
their education.
“I gave my children an incentive so they wouldn’t lose interest
in school,” she said. “I told them if they got more A’s than I
did, I would have to take them out to eat – but if I got more A’s
than they did, they would have to take me out to eat, and this
strategy worked!”
Pearson says her years at Bethel were challenging and exciting.
“I was a mother figure to a number of the students because
I was older,” she said. “They would come to me for advice.
Some would even come on Sundays for dinner -- especially
those who couldn’t go home on the weekends.”
Pearson recalls other ways she was involved at Bethel as
well.
“I was the president of the Black Student Association for
two years,” she said. “And I received the Black Student of the
Year Award in 1979.”
Continued on Page 47
22