From These Roots

“Brother Hester was outstanding both as a preacher and teacher. Nine years of his ministry were devoted to North Greenville Academy where he was principal. Here he touched the lives of a large number of men and women who are now outstanding pastors and missionaries. All of these attribute much of their success to this noble soldier of the cross. Not many men have done so much with so little. He fought a good fight and surely there was a ‘Well done thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.’” – B.B. Jernigan

On December 12, 1884, farmer James P. Hester and his wife Eddie Blanton Hester welcomed their son, Henry Clayton Hester, into the world. He spent his childhood just across the North Carolina border near a town called Rutherfordton. Based on the records, it seems that he had very little education before he turned 17. At that time, he started attending school in South Carolina. He attended Buffalo Graded School and Pacolet Graded School before attending Spartan Academy, a Baptist school similar to North Greenville, where he graduated in 1909. After high school, he obtained an A.B. degree at Furman University in 1913. During his time at Furman, Mr. Hester went on a mission trip to Brazil and planned to become a missionary. He was passionate about foreign missions and spoke on the topic frequently while a student. After graduating from Furman, Mr. Hester started preaching at Double Springs Baptist Church, Taylors First Baptist Church, and Fairview Baptist Church. In addition to preaching at these three churches, he also taught school in the Sandy Flat community.

His work didn’t pay much so he boarded with the Dill family of Double Springs so he could save money to go to seminary. The oldest daughter of the Dills was North Greenville High School alumna Jennie Mae Dill. Jennie was a student at Winthrop when Mr. Hester moved in with her family. The two met, fell in love, and were married after Jennie graduated from Winthrop in 1915. The couple then took off to Louisville, Kentucky where Mr. Hester received a Th.M. degree in 1918 and pastored churches in Indiana. The couple had planned to be foreign missionaries, but the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention was in a bad place financially and couldn’t afford to send out the couple. So, instead, Mr. Hester took pastorate positions at Bethcar Baptist Church, Rocky Springs Baptist Church, and later Wagener Baptist Church within the Edisto Baptist Association of South Carolina.

In 1919, the North Greenville trustees asked Mr. Hester to come to North Greenville to serve as principal of the high school. The Hesters accepted and moved to Tigerville where they would have all three of their children in the 9 years Mr. Hester served at the school. North Greenville was not in a good place financially when Mr. Hester came. World War I had just ended and most of the students came from families with little to no money to spend on education. To top it all off, the SC Baptist Convention let Mr. Hester know that they would no longer be supporting the school financially. In response, he told the Executive Secretary, “I accept the challenge. The school will stay open without your help.” According to Mrs. Hester years later, she rarely saw her husband cry but that day he came home and sobbed over the future of the school he had come to love.

Outside pressure was put upon Mr. Hester to let North Greenville be sold like many of the other former Mountain Mission Schools. However, he was determined that North Greenville would have a different fate. He believed God still had a plan for his little school and would do anything it took to keep the doors open. He was so convicted of this that he took local pastorate positions so that he could not only work without pay for North Greenville but also use his preaching salary to help pay the other teachers. One of these pastorates was at Taylors First Baptist Church where he had served previously and another was at Washington Baptist Church. Due to the low pay the school could offer, Hester shared his vision of the school with some of his family members so that they would come to North Greenville to teach for less than they could make elsewhere. One of those family members was his brother B.B. Hester whom the students called B². The NGU archive holds some of B.B.’s military memorabilia.

During his time at North Greenville, Mr. Hester oversaw the construction of Taylor Hall which would be the main men’s dorm until the 1960s. He and some of his students also constructed three cottages on campus for the married students. Mr. Hester believed that every ministerial student at North Greenville should have preaching practice before leaving the school. So, he started a program of Sunday night preaching services where the future pastors could take turns preparing sermons and preaching. These preaching services would eventually plant the seed of the idea that the campus needed a church. The North Greenville Alumni Association was formed under his guidance, football was first instated, and “The Moonshiner” brought about the return of a school yearbook in 1920.

John T. Wood had served as the treasurer of North Greenville throughout Mr. Hester’s time as principal. Hester considered Mr. Wood his right-hand man and when Mr. Wood died in 1924, it was a morale blow to the principal. By 1928, Mr. Hester felt called to return to pastoral ministry. He accepted a position as the pastor of Wagener Baptist Church where he had served prior to going to North Greenville. He stayed in this position for 18 years until he was asked to take a position with the Sunday School Board in Columbia. One year later, on October 29, 1945, he was in Greenville for a Furman University Board of Trustees meeting when he died of a sudden heart attack. One of his coworkers at the South Carolina Baptist Convention stated that he had told Mr. Hester he was working too hard, but Mr. Hester just smiled and continued to work his hardest up until his death. H.C. Hester is buried at Double Springs Baptist Church where he met the love of his life.

Jennie Dill Hester went back to teaching school after her husband’s death and totaled 30 years of teaching by the time she retired in 1965. She was voted North Greenville Alumna of The Year in 1970 and continued to support North Greenville until her own death in 1979.

In 1952, the North Greenville Junior College library was named in Hester’s honor. When the library moved into its own building in 1974, the Hester name was retained to honor the man who had sacrificed so much for the school. In 2002, Mr. Hester’s daughter, Frances Hester Yon, donated his library, sermons, and some of his papers and photos to the North Greenville archive. It remains the largest collection we have for a former principal or president of the school.

“He was truly one of God’s noblemen, a strong preacher, an excellent pastor, and a wise and capable leader. He was loyal to his friends, his church, his denomination, and above all else to his Saviour. He was earnest in his labors, proving himself in whatever capacity he served to be a workman that need not be ashamed.” – W.S. Brooke