Jackie Baugh Moore (BSED ’86) serves on the Baylor University College of Arts & Sciences Board of Advocates. She is the granddaughter of Eula Mae and John Baugh, whose legacy as friends and benefactors of Baylor includes providing critical support for the creation of the George W. Truett Theological Seminary and the John F. Baugh Center for Entrepreneurship in the Hankamer School of Business. Moore and her sister, Julie Baugh Cloud, assist their mother, Babs Baugh, in running the Baugh Foundation, which provides funding and other support for numerous Baptist institutions.

In this installment of Q&A, Randy Fiedler talks with Moore about her family’s Baylor heritage and the importance of making sure that future generations of students have affordable access to education and engaged learning opportunities.

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With your family background, did you have any doubts you would one day attend Baylor?

No. I think I applied to maybe two other places, but I knew I was coming here. My mom said something like, “You can visit anywhere, but I will pay for Baylor.” Growing up, we always came to Homecoming, we came to a lot of football games, and with my grandparents’ and mother’s connections to Baylor it wasn’t much of a decision. I always thought I was coming here.

As a student at Baylor, what kind of things where you involved in?

I was a Tri Delta, serving as assistant rush chairman one year and president my senior year. That was a lot of fun. I was in the founding group of Sentinel, which was the female counterpart to the men’s group New Guard. It served as a student liaison to the board of trustees, and the trustees eventually decided that this function should not be limited to men, so they picked six of us to start Sentinel. We would attend trustee meetings so that they could meet and talk with students. I was also in ODK, which is a national leadership honor society.

When you started at Baylor, did you know what you wanted to do with your life, or was that something that you discovered while you were in college?

I always thought I wanted to teach, which is why I was in the School of Education. But in retrospect, while I did end up teaching I wish I had thought about other career options. I felt like I didn’t think it through as much as kids do nowadays. I was 17 when I came to Baylor because I had graduated high school early, and to me it’s a lot to ask someone at that age what they want to do the rest of their life.

Did you have any favorite professors while you were here?

Yes, I did. Anita Baker, who taught education, was one. Glenn Hilburn was my religion professor, and I adored him. I decided I wanted to make an “A” just to prove to him what a great professor he was. I was a child development minor, and there was a lady named Sadie Jo Black who taught in what we used to call “Home Ec.” I had to take flat pattern or sewing from her, and if you’ve never done something like that and you’re in class with all of these girls who are fashion design majors and know what they are doing, it’s horrible. Out of the kindness of her heart, Professor Black said, “I’m going to give you a ‘B’ because you tried so hard, and I hope you take another class.” I just said, “Oh, sure,” though I thought I’m never doing this again. But she was fabulous to me.

You’re a member of the College of Arts & Sciences Board of Advocates. One of the initiatives the board is helping with now is finding ways to expand opportunities for more students to take part in engaged learning –– such as internships and study abroad trips. What do you think about that effort?

I’m very excited. I mean, isn’t that what going to college all about? It’s a great idea. Internships are invaluable, and study abroad is a huge milestone for the kids that do it –– talk about growing up! My oldest two children have done that, and I feel that they left as kids and came back from study abroad as adults.

You’re a multi-generational Baylorite, with your children the latest generation of your family with Baylor ties. At the same time, because of your family’s generosity, the Baugh name is all over campus. What is it that has kept your family so loyal to Baylor over the decades?

My great-grandfather (Eula Mae’s father Ralph Tharp) and his wife Edna both graduated from Baylor. Also, my grandfather, John Baugh, grew up in Waco where his mother was church hostess at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church. My grandfather lost his father when he was about seven years old and worked for A&P grocery chain in Waco hoping to one day attend Baylor. My grandparents both loved the idea of education in a Christian environment –– but education that was always open, where you were free to ask any question. They loved the idea of education where all people are valued and Christian ideals thrive in a highly intellectual context. I guess that’s what most everybody who attends loves about Baylor.

Is it true that your grandfather wanted to study at Baylor, but had to change his plans?

Yes. He came to Baylor and was a student for a couple of days during the Depression. But he soon had to leave because A&P shut down a number of its stores and moved those employees to Waco, leaving my grandfather without a job to pay for his schooling. He was able to get a job at an A&P in Houston, so he hitchhiked there and studied at the University of Houston, but never graduated. He met my grandmother in night school at U of H when he was working at A&P.

You had the opportunity to watch your grandfather doing a lot of things with Baylor and the other organizations and causes he supported before his death in 2007. Do you take with you any inspiration or any lessons you learned from him?

Everything about him we take with us, because he was really an amazing, unusual and gifted man and the most kindhearted person. I’m totally biased, but there’s nobody else that will ever be like him. He was a church lay leader, so lay leadership was very important to him and he felt completely committed to supporting not only the local church but his local pastor. He was always close to his pastors. I think that’s something that we’ve definitely taken from him –– and his belief that education is vital. Even though he didn’t get to graduate from college, he felt that was a dream he needed to help others achieve.

You and your sister Julie and your mother, Babs Baugh, are closely involved with running the Baugh Foundation, which supports a number of Baptist groups and causes throughout the United States. You mother has served for many years as the Foundation’s president. Can you talk about you and your mom’s involvement with this important organization?

My grandparents started the Baugh Foundation in 1994, but it really didn’t grow until my grandmother’s death. That’s when my grandparents’ entire estate went into the foundation. I think there are probably more than 100 different organizations we’ve partnered with through the years, and one of the first big ones we supported was Truett Seminary at Baylor. My grandfather started the foundation and set the criteria after consulting with Dr. Herbert Reynolds, Baylor’s president at the time, and my mom was very involved in that as well because she’s an only child and she and her father were very close. My mom has kind of been the caretaker of their idea and their legacy and vision, which includes bring interested in first amendment freedoms such as separation of church and state and freedom of the press, as well as supporting education at Baptist universities and seminaries. Seminary scholarships are especially important, because you know that graduates will probably not make a large salary every year unless they’re at a very large church. We really need to help these students or we are not going to get the best and brightest going to seminary because they can’t afford to retire the debt they would have to assume to attend.

You work very closely with your mother. What are her interests in education?

Her experience at Baylor was so good, like mine was, that she wants other people to get to have the same kind of opportunity to learn, whatever they choose to study. She especially loves teenagers. She is very involved in music and youth being in music, and that’s why she has been interested in the School of Music, which was her major at Baylor. She’s also interested in Truett Seminary because the local church is a priority for her.

What things about your mother do you admire most?

My mom has a magnetic personality. She believes that in the end, it’s all going to be okay and everybody can be helped. She always believes the best in people, almost to a fault, and she is one of the most positive people that you’ll ever meet. She’s kind, and she’s really, really smart and accomplished in her own right. Growing up as the only child of John Baugh cannot have been the easiest thing to do. Even though my mom has Parkinson’s disease, she leads a group of 120 men and women that go and sing at two nursing homes a week, and she is still very active in her church choir. She’s a big proponent of the local church and always wants to be supportive of her pastor. Like my grandfather, she has made lay leadership in the church a priority in her life. Finally, she’s somewhat crazy, but we have so much fun together.