mr. leslie mccullough
january 1965-MAY 1973
We never thought of it as having hard times and yet they were there. The starkness and chill of the "tabernacle building" with its concrete floors, no heat and faulty septic system are all part of it. But as I look back, those were some of the happiest years of my life. Big Sandy is home.

mr. selmer hegvold
june 1976-june 1979
Iris and I were transferred from Chicago to Big Sandy in June of 1976. Soon, we began a club to accommodate the many seniors who had moved to the area over the years. They chose to name it the "Silver Ambassador Club." These seniors were an encouraging and supportive element to Mr. Pyle and me.

dr. donald ward
JUNE 1979-SEPTEMBER 1982
For forty years, the brethren in this church area have just about seen it all. But through it all, the brethren in the Big Sandy church have demonstrated what it means to be living sacrifices. When I think of the brethren, I think of adaptability, flexibility and patient endurance coupled with faith.

MR. BURK MCNAIR
september 1982-JUNE1988
We will always treasure the six years we served the Big Sandy congregation. Being pastor in the college environment made our assignment even more rewarding. The involvement between the church and students of the college was a great satisfaction to us.

mr. randal dick
(A.M.) july 199O-june 1991
It was an honor to serve as the inaugural pastor of the A.M. congregation. Even though we departed very quickly, and served you a short time, we left behind many new friends and loved ones, and we feel very much a part of the fabric of the Big Sandy church.

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^	A.M. elders and wives
(From left) Mr. & Mrs. Ellis Stewart, Mr. & Mrs. David Leach, Mr. & Mrs. Les Clark, Mr. & Mrs. Lee Sefcak

A.M. deacons and deaconesses
(From left) front row: Linda Patton, Ollie Harrison, Margie Evans, Alvah Pyle, Sondra Manteufel, Donna Weese,
Ivirne Alien, Freia Smith; middle row: Edmund Smith, Jim Cowan, Louis Burgin, Bob Worthen, James Worthen,
Mac Callender, Eric Jauch; back row: Fred Patton, John Warren, Skeets Mez, Mario Hernandez, Marv Harmdierks,
James Jackson, Melven Alien, Kenneth Weese
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P.M. elders and wives
(From left) Mr. & Mrs. Buck Hammer, Mr. & Mrs. Jack Elliott, Mr. & Mrs. Richard Bydlon, Mr. & Mrs. Richard Hegna

P.M. deacons and deaconesses
(From left) front row: Reba Bond, Louise Moore, Esther Parrish, Estelle Steep;
middle row: Scott Hammer, John Trotter, Lewis Caudiil, Roland Ouellette, Pete Wynn, Harold Roe, Norman Bronnum; back row: Dionisio Velasco, V.L. Stolley, Dyle Koch, Ed Weiss, Bernabe Mansalvo, Al Hoppe
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GROWTH OF A VISION
When Buck Hammer and his family lived in a modest clapboard house about two miles from the small East Texas town of Big Sandy, he could walk into his backyard, gaze beyond the rabbit hutch located there and view a good portion of his property.
"It was not a particularly valuable piece of property," he says now with a chuckle. "It was hilly and covered with sandburs, bull nettles and native pines. There was one main road, like a glorified driveway, to provide access, and a big open field, and beyond that there was just some cleared bottom land and dirt trails through thick timber."
But that was 40 years ago. Follow that same gaze now and you would see Ambassador College—a four-year liberal arts institution that boasts an enrollment of almost 1200 students representing 39 countries. The driveway has become an entrance road to a 2500-acre college complex, and the dirt roads have been tranformed into paved streets that take the visitor through a campus that includes modern buildings, a nine-hole golf course, an equestrian

center and a 55-acre lake used for swimming, fishing and boating.
Also within the view of the observer would be the Ambassador College Field House where church services are held weekly for the 2250-plus members of the Worldwide Church of God of Big Sandy and their families, many of whose faces are pictured in this book. They share in the realization of a dream first held by the college and Church's founder, Herbert W. Armstrong.
This history of the Big Sandy church charts the growth of that vision, from its bold beginnings four decades ago to its aspirations for the '90s and beyond.
VISION IS SEEING WHERE LIFE IS HEADING AND KNOWING HOW
TO MAKE THE TRANSITION TO WHERE IT OUGHT TO BE. GREAT
ACCOMPLISHMENTS ARE PRECEDED BY GREATER VISION."
—joseph W. tkach

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ENVISIONING THE FUTURE
The vision began to unfold in 1948 when a relationship was forged between Herbert W. Armstrong and an East Texas family. Listeners of Mr. Armstrong's World Tomorrow radio broadcast, Roy Hammer, his wife, Pearl, and his son and daughter-in-law, Buck and Jeanne Hammer, visited the Church's headquarters at Ambassador College, Pasadena, California.
They made the acquaintance of Mr. Armstrong during that visit and, as pioneer members in what was then the Radio Church of God, maintained that contact over the next several years.
In 1951, Roy Hammer invited 13 other members of the Church into his home for Passover services. The next spring, the church again met for Passover in the Hammer home in Gladewater, Texas. This time 89 members, some from hundreds of miles away, crammed into the small house.
"It was during this period of time that Mr. Armstrong, seeing the growth of the church here, commissioned my dad, Roy, and me to find a plot of land suitable for a local church site," recalls Buck Hammer. "We looked at several properties in the area, but none seemed quite right. Finally I told Mr. Armstrong, 'Here, why don't I just donate some of my land?' The price being right, he accepted."
In late 1952, Mr. Armstrong came to look at the newly acquired property (which now comprises the Ambassador College entrance, library and lower valley area). Though thick stands of pine and heavy underbrush made the area practically impassable, and liberal infestations of snakes and insects made it almost inhospitable, Mr. Armstrong found his way to a cleared area near an old sweet water spring. There, standing beneath a giant old oak, he preached his first sermon before a fledgling congregation.
In Mr. Armstrong's eyes, the area was perfect for a church meeting site, so the next year, 1953, marked both the beginning of regular services for the Big Sandy congregation and the ground breaking for the "Redwood Building," designed to house church services and the Feast of Tabernacles.

"I spent a lot of time in the seat of a little John Deere bulldozer I had at the time," remembers Mr. Hammer, "but before we really got the Redwood Building going good, we decided to enlarge it and add 25 feet to each side."
He and his father, Roy, spent much of that year laboring on the Quonset-shaped structure, and by fall it was ready to serve as the sole Feast site for the United States. It was cold and there had not been time to install windows. More than 700 brethren shivered there together that fall.

Over the years, the Redwood Building continued to be a focus of Big Sandy church activities. In 1954 it served as classroom facilities for the newly established Imperial grade and high schools. Imperial classes were held there until the Imperial School complex was built in 1964. (The 12 grades of Imperial continued for another decade until it closed in 1974.)
What was then called simply "the metal building" (now the Ambassador College Field House) was built in 1958 to serve as a convention center for the Feast, seating 5500 that first year. The outgrown Redwood Building was used as a dining hall. Also that year, 300 booths

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