H.P. and Mary McCormick arrived in Hawaii in 1947 with an assignment. Sixty years later, we celebrate the birth of that assignment we now call Hawaii Baptist Academy.
A look at the history of any institution or organization must begin with its founders. For HBA, it was two Southern Baptist missionaries who devoted their lives in total service to God.
In 1947, the McCormicks were sent to Hawaii by the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board to build a Christian school. Originally intended for children of local churches, this school acquired a two-acre land in Makiki on Heulu Street and began the process of building up, both in structure and in purpose. With work done mostly by volunteers and the McCormicks themselves, HBA was having its humble beginnings.
Hugh Pendleton McCormick was born in Mineola, TX, in 1895. After growing up in Mississippi and attending Southern Baptist Seminary and Johns Hopkins University, McCormick served as an army officer in World War I. In 1920, he was appointed as a missionary to Nigeria, where he fulfilled various teaching and administrative roles within the Baptist Mission and the Baptist College and Seminary. Mary Catherine Reeks was born in West Feliciana, LA, in 1896. She studied at Tulane University and Johns Hopkins University. As a registered nurse, Mrs. McCormick focused on both the medical and spiritual needs of those she served. After getting married in the United States in 1925, Mr. and Mrs. McCormick returned to Nigeria for further mission work before settling in Hawaii in 1947 on assignment to start a Christian school. Mr. McCormick served as principal from 1948 to 1960, excluding 1952-1953. Mrs. McCormick was the school nurse and librarian. They served the school until 1960.
Mr. McCormick died suddenly in 1975. In 1989, at age 92, Mrs. McCormick visited HBA for the last time and said, “The evidence before us shows that the school has become far greater and more excellent than we could have dreamed.” She died in 1992 in South Carolina, a month short of her 96th birthday.
Hawaii Baptist Academy owes its existence and purposeful beginnings to H.P. and Mary McCormick, two humble servants of God who faithfully followed their call to serve the needs of Hawaii. They stepped out in faith and began a school founded on Christian principles. “Whether the ideals of the school were realized is to be judged by the lives that were touched by its influence,” said Mrs. McCormick in 1979 at HBA’s 30th anniversary. Because of these two remarkable individuals, many lives have indeed been touched and changed. We honor and remember the founders of our school as we celebrate this, our 60th year.
Next article … HBA opens its doors in September 1949 for the first time.
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