Jay Dickey: “Let me show my support for what you all are talking about by telling a little story that occurred in Pine Bluff…”

“Let me show my support for what you all are talking about by telling a little story that occurred in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, my hometown. We had a Fellowship of Christian Athletes there, it was trying to get started, and a minister was trying to sponsor it. He worked hard at it, but he could come only at certain times, so some of us were called and asked as laymen to come help with the program. We had five or six people that were coming to the meetings once a week. We started working on it, a bunch of our communities started working on it, and we got the attendance up to maybe 200 in a given week. We set records as far as sending people to the national conference. We had 75 that went to Tulsa one year. We had three buses of kids. We had kids that were working after school on these projects and on the weekends. We had what is called an Olympics Day, as I recall, and we had a contest. We made up our own athletic contest. We did things with the cheerleaders and the girls. So, what happened? Slowly the opposition started building. First of all, people came in and said, 'Oh, you are taking money away from the school.' We said, 'No, we have been raising money and putting it into the school Treasury, and at the end of the year the school has been taking it. So the school has been making money off of it.' They said, 'This is supported by a church.' We said, 'No, it is not. We do not even have a minister who is involved.' So that went by the wayside.…”