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Virginia & Jim Hughes<br />
Camille Anding<br />
College campuses are obvious<br />
centers for education, but they’re<br />
also prime institutions for budding<br />
romances. Virginia Haynes and<br />
Jim Hughes found that to be their<br />
experience when they met at<br />
Mississippi College in 1956. She<br />
was a freshman, and he was a<br />
sophomore.<br />
In December of her freshman<br />
year, the two joined other BSU<br />
students to attend a Billy Graham<br />
crusade in Nashville. After the<br />
crusade, Virginia and Jim had their<br />
first official date when they sat in<br />
the nosebleed section for an evening<br />
of entertainment at the Ryman<br />
Auditorium.<br />
Their mutual attractions were<br />
obvious. “I really liked him,” Virginia<br />
said, recalling those college days.<br />
“He was so outgoing with his<br />
winsome personality.”<br />
Jim was smitten by Virginia’s<br />
physical as well as intrinsic beauty.<br />
“I admired her quiet way of<br />
handling situations and especially<br />
her relationship with the Lord,”<br />
he added.<br />
Virginia graduated in 1959 and<br />
accepted a position as an English<br />
teacher at Columbus High School.<br />
Her fiancé was in his first year of<br />
medical school at Wake Forest<br />
School of Medicine in North<br />
Carolina. The two were attentive<br />
to their new roles in life after<br />
college, but they never lost sight<br />
of their future wedding date –<br />
June 10, 1960.<br />
Family and friends gathered at the<br />
First Baptist Church in Columbus<br />
to witness the wedding vows that<br />
the couple promised each other–<br />
to have and to hold from this day<br />
forward. In remembering that<br />
celebrated day, Virginia shared<br />
how she and Jim had given major<br />
thought and planning to keep the<br />
location of their going-away<br />
vehicle hidden. They decided on a<br />
spot in the back of the police<br />
department. Who would figure<br />
that to be the place of their<br />
get-away car?<br />
Much to their shock, the entire<br />
wedding party, along with most of<br />
the guests, were waiting for them<br />
when they rushed to their<br />
undisclosed location. Amid a lot<br />
of laughter and joy, the couple<br />
pulled away to their first home, a<br />
rental house in Winston Salem.<br />
Their vehicle left with a “Just<br />
Married” sign along with everything<br />
the young couple would<br />
need to set up housekeeping. In<br />
fact, the vehicle was so crampacked<br />
that neither Virginia nor<br />
Jim could see each other for the<br />
wall of boxes between them.<br />
Jim’s internship carried them to<br />
Roosevelt Hospital in New York<br />
for two years. The Vietnam War<br />
interrupted their future plans<br />
when Jim was sent to Ft. Rucker<br />
and then on to the 173rd Airborne<br />
Brigade followed by 7th Surgical<br />
Mash Hospital.<br />
Their next home as a family<br />
was in Baltimore, Maryland, at<br />
Johns Hopkins Hospital. Virginia<br />
adapted well to the demanding life<br />
of a surgeon as she maintained her<br />
role as mother to their three young<br />
daughters.<br />
12 • APRIL 2023
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