On a hot Tuesday night in Ripley, West Virginia, a room of nearly 80 Palmer students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends were reminded that the seminary journey is not about receiving a piece of paper. Jonathan Butcher, a 2024 MDiv graduate exhorted, “We have been taught better because there are so many more to be taught, we have learned to serve better because there are so many to be served, and we have learned to love better because there are so many thousands each of us can love better!”
Every May the Palmer community gathers to celebrate the graduates and alumni of Palmer’s West Virginia program at the Parchment Valley Conference Center. They gather for more than a celebratory meal; it is a pilgrimage, of sorts, to a place set apart, to an assembly of people set apart. It is a community of people who, beyond the flip of a tassel, truly do life and ministry together.
Palmer’s West Virginia program began in 1991 with an agreement between the seminary and the West Virginia Baptist Convention led by Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary alumnus Rev. Dr. Robert Matherly. In honor of Dr. Matherly’s legacy, each year an Award of Excellence is presented to a person, who by their excellence in ministry, has assisted and advanced the mission of the program. This year’s recipient is the Rev. Dr. Michael A. Poke Sr., Pastor of St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, Albans, WV and adjunct faculty in the WV Program.
At its inception, the program intended to bring quality theological education to the state of West Virginia, and it has continued to do so for the last 33 years. Rev. Dr. R. Allan Copenhaver, alumnus and now Program Director, shares that while serving the people of West Virginia, the program also offers the flexibility of a hybrid model (online + residency) of theological education to a variety of people. “We currently have a student in Scotland, have had several in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and a graduate tonight, who lives in Georgia.”
“Community has always been a strength of this program,” says Dr. Copenhaver. “The Whole Gospel for the Whole World through Whole Persons motto of the seminary is contextually relevant across settings, whether urban or rural, stateside or international.”. The West Virginia program is not a separate entity but one of the many parts of the Palmer community that span the globe. All of these unique parts, together, transcend context and culture blooming for the flourishing of all.