From These Roots

Thomas “Tom” Lawton Neely was born on September 11, 1915, in Greenville, South Carolina, to parents Kreswell Edward Neely and Mamie Willingham Lawton Neely. His father was a businessman who ran Neely Lumber Company in Greenville before relocating the business to Spartanburg when Tom was eight years old. Tom was the oldest of nine children and was saved at the age of seven. He felt an early call to go into the ministry and began preaching when he was just sixteen years old. He graduated from Spartanburg High School in 1933 and set out to pursue his calling by furthering his education.

                Neely attended North Greenville Junior College in 1934 during the first year North Greenville offered college work. Previously, North Greenville had just been a high school. Neely’s cousin, Sam Lawton, was the academic dean at North Greenville and it is possible that is how Neely heard about the school. During his time as a student at North Greenville, Neely participated in the A.C.H. Literary Society as well as the Volunteer Band. He was also an honor roll student and the class president. He became one of the first graduates of North Greenville Junior College in 1936.

                After graduating from North Greenville, Neely attended Wofford College to finish his undergraduate work. At Wofford, he was a member of Sigma Tau Alpha, which was the National Honorary Christian Leadership fraternity, and was a tenor in the Glee Club.  After graduating from Wofford with a bachelor’s degree in 1938, Neely attended the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He graduated from Southwestern in 1941 with a Master of Theology degree.  While he was in seminary, he pastored at Deer Creek Baptist Church and Jolly Baptist Church.

                Once he had finished seminary, he returned to South Carolina and became the pastor of Holly Springs Baptist Church in Inman. In 1941, Neely married Carolyn Switzer in Roebuck, South Carolina. Carolyn was a graduate of Lander College where she had been a member of the International Relations Club, French Club, Math Club, and the Kappa Rho Beta club. The couple had three children together including Charles Henry, Carole Ann, and Timothy Switzer.

                In 1942, Neely resigned as pastor of Holly Springs Baptist Church to become a missionary in South America. However, his original trip was canceled due to World War II, so he served as a supply pastor at Inman Mills Baptist Church until the spring of 1943 when he was able to secure passage to South America. The couple and their young son arrived safely in Barranquilla, Columbia, to begin their mission work. Neely later said in an interview about becoming a missionary, “My mother’s oldest brother, Rev. W.W. Lawton, served as a Southern Baptist Missionary in China for 45 years, influenced me in my choice of the mission field.”

The Neelys served in Colombia for six years before becoming the first Southern Baptist Missionaries to Caracas, Venezuela. While serving in Venezuela, Neely did some graduate work at Central University. He said of the people in South America, “They may be backward in technology, but they have values which we don’t have. They take time to live, time to express themselves as individuals in the humanities and arts.”

                After ten years of mission work in South America, the Neelys returned to South Carolina and Neely, once again, became pastor of Holly Springs Baptist Church. In addition to his work at the church, Neely served as moderator for the North Spartanburg Baptist Association from 1956-1958, was the Vice President of the South Carolina Baptist Convention in 1957, was a member of the General Board of the South Carolina Baptist Convention from 1957-1958, and was a member of the Spartanburg County Agriculture Committee from 1956-1958. He remained at Holly Springs until 1958 when he accepted a position at North Greenville Junior College as the administrative assistant to President Dr. M.C. Donnan. According to the college newspaper, The Skyliner, his duties were, “to include promotional work, solicitation, and a limited amount of evangelistic work.”

The Neelys moved to Tigerville and became members of Tigerville Baptist Church. They lived in a brick house across the street from the church on the corner of Tigerville Road and Chinquapin Road. It was this proximity to the church that led to Neely discovering in the early hours of December 26, 1960, that the church building had caught on fire. Neely sounded the alarm, but the church building was destroyed. When it came time to create a building committee for a new church building, Neely served on the committee.

On March 20, 1962, it was announced that Dr. Donnan would be retiring from his position as the school’s president and Thomas Neely would be the second president of North Greenville Junior College. North Greenville flourished in the years Neely was president. Several buildings were constructed during his time including Howard Hall, Foster Student Center, and the Tuttle Clinic. The Neely family also became the first family to move into the new president’s house in 1967 and construction began on Bruce Hall shortly before Neely resigned.

Enrollment was at around 480 during Neely’s first year as president and steadily rose to a peak of 551 during the 1966-1967 school year. After that year, enrollment dropped down to 471 and stayed around that number for the remainder of Neely’s presidency.  In a report to the trustees, Neely guessed that the dip in enrollment was possibly due to Clemson and USC opening extension centers in the area. He also suggested that “junior” be dropped from the name of the school to attract more students, but the name change did not happen until 1972.

To help with enrollment, North Greenville opened a Greer Extension Center for the 1966-1967 school year. The extension center was aimed at working adults who wanted to further their education but could not make the drive to Tigerville. In 1969, North Greenville had its accreditation renewed by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The renewal had been postponed for a year while the library was being expanded.

One of the most significant changes at North Greenville during the Neely years was that the school desegregated. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it so that schools could not get federal funding if the remained segregated. Neely believed that times were changing and schools needed federal funding in order to survive. So, in 1965, the North Greenville trustees voted to comply with the Civil Rights Act. The first black student to attend North Greenville, Warren Sullivan, attended the new Greer Extension Center in the fall of 1966. The next year, Zawaski Bateman and Melden Bush became the first black traditional students at the Tigerville campus. The desegregation of the Tigerville campus may also be a contributing factor of the decline in enrollment that year.

                Neely’s presidential duties kept him busy, but he still found time to occasionally preach at local churches, enjoy his hobbies, and serve in other capacities. From 1961-1966, Neely was a South Carolina member of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Foreign Mission Board. He was also elected president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention in 1968. Furman University awarded him with an honorary Doctor of Divinity in 1964 for his achievements and hard work. In his limited free time, Neely enjoyed gardening and writing poetry. He also credited the campus with helping him to keep in shape, “I get plenty of exercise walking from building to building since most of the going is uphill!”

Thomas Neely resigned as president of North Greenville Junior College in 1970. In his resignation letter, Neely stated that he had felt God was leading him into a different ministry for over a year. He had decided to devote his time to guest speaking, leading prayer retreats, and writing. By this time, Neely had written two books including “Christ is All” and “In God’s Image”. Neely wrote about his time at North Greenville, “I am grateful for the opportunity that God has given me to serve the college these twelve years and trust that He will make my services a lasting benefit to the school.”

After leaving North Greenville, Neely traveled around the country speaking at conferences, retreats, and churches. In 1979, Neely and his wife Carolyn divorced. He eventually settled in Ridgecrest, NC, but still spent a lot of his time traveling to various speaking engagements. He also returned to foreign missions for about three years in Israel. In 1982, Neely married his second wife, Audrey Georgia Sorren. Audrey was also divorced and had two sons. The couple started traveling together as evangelists who ministered and sang together. In 2002, North Greenville College awarded Dr. Neely with an honorary doctorate degree.

Thomas Lawton Neely passed away on December 23, 2010. He is buried at Ridgecrest Memorial Park in Ridgecrest, North Carolina. In lieu of flowers at his funeral, his family requested that donations be made to North Greenville University to the “Tom L. Neely Scholarship Fund.” The proceeds of all donations were used to establish a scholarship for foreign exchange students seeking a Christian education in the United States.