Ouachita Stories

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Ouachita's Ava Weeks: Community, calling and the road to Miss America

June 16, 2026

Miss Arkansas 2026 Ava Weeks — an Ouachita Baptist University student — shares how faith, community and a calling to teach are shaping her year ahead.

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Benson wins 2026 Juried Student Art & Design Show

June 12, 2026

Ouachita Baptist University’s Bryce Benson, a senior graphic design major from Forney, Texas, took home first place in the university’s 2026 Juried Student Art & Design Show with his terracotta pencil piece titled “Sit and Look Elegant.”

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Burson's music composition selected for national conference

June 5, 2026

Baylee Burson, a recent music graduate from Arkadelphia, Arkansas, had an original music composition, “Scarlet,” selected for performance at the College Music Society’s 68th National Conference in Spokane, Washington, on October 30.

Fierce Love and Good Gifts

May 28, 2026

Ouachita's Elrod Center honors more than 150 volunteers

May 28, 2026

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The Signal Student Newspaper

OUACHITA CIRCLE: FALL // WINTER 2025

The alumni magazine of Ouachita Baptist University

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Ouachita has faced high times and low times. Years of strength and years of struggle. Through all these seasons — institutional and individual — one certainty remains: God's faithfulness.

The Why Behind Our Traditions

While we often want to hold on to the comfort of traditions, I think it’s important to ask why they were important to us. What about the behavior do we long to preserve? I often remind students to think beyond the behavior of a tradition and consider the belief behind it. What is it about the tradition that is important? Often, the importance is found in the why.

Staff Profile: Sonny Jackson

One member of the Ouachita family was Sonny Jackson. Once a professional middleweight boxer in the Pacific Northwest, Sonny wasn't a Ouachita graduate. But he was very much part of the family as a member and later the head of Ouachita's grounds crew.

Staff Profile: Rosemary Chu

When I give the newly arrived freshmen a taste of Ouachita history before classes start each fall, I tell the inspirational story of Rosemary Chu. What Chu had was the investment she had made in Ouachita. And Ouachita invested in her.

Faculty Profile: Phil Rice

What an honor it is to share a few words about a man who impacted my life so profoundly. As a good Baptist, I thought I would arrange my thoughts around three alliterative points: paper, people and purpose.

Ken Sandifer (left) with two students conducting field research on poisened fish. Photo from the 1965 Ouachitonian yearbook.

Faculty Profile: Kenneth Sandifer

Tim Knight shares about his professor and colleague, Kenneth Sandifer, professor emeritus of biology at Ouachita.

Faculty Profile: Bill Downs

Melinda Mayo reflects on her professor, Bill Downs, professor emeritus of mass communications, who served Ouachita for 41 years.

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