By Bob Allen
Two students living in an upstairs apartment escaped an early morning fire Sept. 3 at the Baptist Collegiate Ministries building at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tenn., unharmed but with only the clothes on their backs.
According to local media, senior Tyler Smith from Calhoun, Ga., and sophomore Nick Sackman from Watertown, Tenn., were asleep upstairs in the Kenneth M. Trammell Baptist Student Center when they heard a smoke alarm sometime between 5:30 and 5:45 a.m. By then the room was already filled with smoke, and Lebanon Fire Chief Chris Dowell told the Wilson Post the two young men were lucky to get out alive.
Nearly three dozen firefighters worked for hours to battle the blaze, which appears to have been ignited by a lightning strike and smoldered for several hours inside a wall before bursting into flames. The Baptist center, a former private residence near 1,500-student liberal arts school 25 miles east of Nashville owned by Wilson Baptist Association, was a total loss.
The association of 42 Southern Baptist churches in Wilson County in Middle Tennessee is accepting monetary gifts for the two students, who lost everything they needed in preparation for the school year. Smith is a member of the school’s wrestling team, which also accepting donations of clothes, personal hygiene items and other necessities. Several community organizations are working with university staff to provide temporary assistance such as food, housing and clothing.
Cumberland University was founded by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and chartered in 1843. The Tennessee Baptist Convention assumed control of the school in 1946, ending more than a century of operation by Presbyterians.
In 1951, the Tennessee Baptists closed the College of Arts and Sciences and operated only the School of Law. In 1956, the Board of Trust secured an amendment to the Charter and changed Cumberland to a private, independent corporation. The College of the Arts and Sciences was reopened as a two-year junior college, known as Cumberland College of Tennessee. In 1962, the assets of the School of Law were transferred to Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.