Presidents of Georgetown College

Baron DeKald Gray   1901-1903

            Gray devoted his life to the ministry, and was a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention.  He was born near Waynesboro, Mississippi, on June 18, 1855.  For the first nineteen years of his life, he worked on the plantation of his father, John L. Gray.  He attended neighborhood schools and the Waynesboro Academy.  At about the age of sixteen he accepted Christ as his savior, and joined his home church, Salem Baptist, at Waynesboro.  A short time after that he surrendered to the call of the ministry, being ordained and licensed to preach by his own church.

            In January 1874, Gray began his undergraduate education at Mississippi College, the state’s Baptist college.  After graduating with an A.B. degree in the summer of 1878, Gray pastored the Mount Bluff and New Hope Baptist churches, in Madison County, Mississippi, for one year.  He continued his education in 1879, entering Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Louisville, and simultaneously pastoring Midway Baptist at Midway, Buffalo Lick Baptist in Shelby County, and East Baptist at Louisville.  After graduating in 1883, he continued as pastor at East Baptist for one year.

            Gray returned to his home state to pastor a church in Clinton.  During this time, he married Alma Ratliff, daughter of W. T. Ratliff, December 9, 1884.  He left his pastorate in Clinton to accept service of the church, in 1888, in Hazelhurst, Mississippi.  During this time, he began expanding his denominational work, serving as chairman for Mississippi of the Baptist Centennial of Missions and as state vice president of the Foreign Mission Board.  In the spring of 1893, he accepted the pastorate of First Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama.

            Gray came to Georgetown College as president in 1901.  In his two brief years, Gray’s dynamic leadership created excitement in developing the college’s academics.  When he arrived at the local railroad station, the students welcomed him.  He rallied support for the college through a large alumni banquet in which Congressman J. C. C. Black of Georgia, a Georgetown College alumnus, was the main speaker.  Gray was able to hire high caliber teachers such as Garnett Ryland from Johns Hopkins University in the area of chemistry and Edward  Pollard from Yale University in the area of Bible, because he exceeded the challenge grant made by the General Education Board.  John D. Rockefeller, Senior’s organization offered the college $25,000 if the friends of the college could raise $75,000.  Gray proceeded to raise $200,000.  Unfortunately, Gray left Georgetown in 1903 to lead the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, where he remained until his retirement in 1928.  He died in Atlanta, Georgia on November 25, 1946.