October 26, 2024 at 3:45 a.m. by Frank E. Lockwood – Arkansas Democrat Gazette
VARNER — Near the high-voltage fence separating this state penitentiary from the outside world, there’s now a new 5,000-square-feet educational building — the future home of Arkansas’ only prison seminary.
Funded almost entirely by private donations, it took just under a year to build. Varner Unit inmates provided much of the labor.
Monday morning, they were busy, touching up spots with paint brushes and sweeping away debris.
“My understanding is it’s supposed to be done by the end of the week,” Mark Thompson, director of the Arkansas Prison Initiative, told visitors earlier this week.
A dedication is scheduled for Tuesday.
The hard-working prisoners are pleased with the finished product.
“It’s been a good project,” inmate Mario Perea said. “You feel like you accomplished something.”
Varner Unit is in Lincoln County, roughly 30 miles southeast of Pine Bluff.
The new schoolhouse, which sits beside the prison chapel, contains four classrooms, two office spaces and a restroom with a giant glass window on the door and zero privacy.
In one classroom, a giant electronic smartboard has already been installed.
“It’s like an oversized iPad,” one prison employee said.
The other classrooms will be equipped with 85-inch screens.
Thompson, an assistant professor of church history, missions and theology at Memphis’s Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, will be teaching many of the classes, including courses on Christian history, Baptist history, biblical preaching and biblical doctrine.
Colossians 4:18 Prison Ministries, a Dumas-based nonprofit, helped spearhead the fundraising efforts.
(Colossians 4:18 is the last verse in Paul’s message to the church in Colossae. Writing from a Roman jail, he told the congregation: “Remember my imprisonment.”)
Following next week’s ribbon cutting, the keys and ownership of the building will be turned over to prison officials. They’ll be able to use it for meetings and other educational activities.
From start to finish, Arkansans have given generously.
“It basically is, we’ve been told, about a $1.2 million building. We’re going to get it built, get it finished, for around $300,000,” said William “Dubs” Byers, the ministry’s president and a member of the state Board of Corrections.
That’s possible, he said, because so many supporters made in-kind donations. One company provided the building’s red iron frame free of charge.
Another supporter, who insisted on anonymity, wrote a check for $150,000. A retired Memphis educator in her 90s, after hearing about the seminary, donated $30,000 to provide all of the furnishings.
The library soon will hold 12,000 books.
Donnie Wallace, who is serving time at Varner, smiled as visitors admired the workers’ handiwork. “I like doing something that’s going to help people,” he said. “This program changes lives, so it’s a big deal,” he said. “It’s something positive in all the bad. There’s a lot of bad.”
The prison seminary, launched in 2019, graduated its first class in May 2023. Eighteen inmates and one former inmate received bachelor’s degrees in Christian studies after completing their coursework. They completed their studies with an average grade point average of 3.87.
In addition to religious instruction, inmates must also complete a variety of core courses, including math, English, ethics, biology, philosophy and Spanish.
With the additional space, there’ll be room to enroll 100 college students at a time.
Members of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention helped launch the school, underwriting the costs the first four years and continuing to donate annually since then. Their generosity has never wavered.
“If it hadn’t been for them, I don’t think it would have started,” Byers said.
“The state convention has been a strong, strong partner for us, so we’re very grateful for them,” said Bob Harper, a retired Baptist pastor and state convention missions leader who now serves on the Colossians 4:18 board.
In order to enroll, students must have a good disciplinary record, academic abilities and either a high school diploma or a General Educational Development certificate.
They must also be serving lengthy sentences. The goal is to train field ministers who will use their learning to benefit their fellow inmates. Enrollment isn’t limited to Christians.
With roughly 19,000 people currently incarcerated in state facilities, there are plenty of potential students.
Michael Hallett, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of North Florida, said faith-based prison education programs are increasingly common. “They’re literally all over the country,” he said in an interview last year.
Most of them are backed by evangelical Christians, he noted.
It costs roughly $2,500 per year to enroll a prisoner in the seminary for a year. Tuition is paid for entirely with private funds, according to Eddie Joe Williams, a former Republican state senator from Cabot who serves as the nonprofit’s secretary.
Other than $77,000 in unrestricted settlement funds from Arkansas Attorney Gen. Tim Griffin, all of the money for the new seminary building came from private donors, Williams added.
He speaks to church groups, encouraging people to donate and pointing them to the organization’s website, col418.org.
“If people catch the vision, then they want to help. They want to be a part of it,” he said.
