Qualla: Gardner-Webb University

Gardner-Webb University: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The springs are still there. Natural cold water bubbles out of the ground on the Gardner-Webb campus, and you can drink it if you want - the same water that decided in 1905 where to put a Baptist high school. The springs were the point. The town was named for them. The school was sited above them because they supplied clean water at a time when clean water in rural North Carolina was not a given. A century and change later, those springs are still cold, the school is a Division I university with a $5.5 million student center and an Olympic medalist on the alumni list, and the granite arch over the main quad still reads *Pro Deo et Humanitate* - for God and humanity.

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Gardner-Webb University: The Boiling Springs High School

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On December 2, 1905, two Baptist associations - Kings Mountain in Cleveland County, Sandy Run in Rutherford County - chartered Boiling Springs High School. The town's Baptist Church donated its old church house, five acres of land, and $2,700 to launch the institution. The locati...

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Gardner-Webb University: A Governor's Name and a Junior College

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The school became Boiling Springs Junior College on September 3, 1928 - just before the Great Depression hit and nearly closed it. Loyal supporters kept it open. One of the first graduating classes included W. J. Cash, who would write *The Mind of the South*, a foundational study...

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Gardner-Webb University: Campus and Hamrick Hall

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Gardner-Webb campus sits on 225 acres in Boiling Springs, in the Blue Ridge foothills roughly between Charlotte and Asheville. The oldest surviving building is E.B. Hamrick Hall, built in the 1920s as a memorial to students who died in World War I. It joined the National Regi...

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Gardner-Webb University: Cody Sanders and a Conversation

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In February 2014, alumnus Cody Sanders - an openly gay Baptist minister - was invited back to campus to speak about his book *Queer Lessons for Churches on the Straight and Narrow*. The invitation drew sharp criticism from conservative Baptists, including a letter in *The Biblica...

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Gardner-Webb University: Runnin' Bulldogs and Notable Names

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Gardner-Webb's athletic teams compete as the Runnin' Bulldogs in NCAA Division I - mostly in the Big South Conference, with swimming in the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association and wrestling in the Southern Conference. The school colors are scarlet, black, and white; the first r...

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