Schuyler Batson

Schuyler Morris Batson, Sr. (Southern Baptist clergyman from Louisiana and Mississippi)
Born	February 10,1923 Hillsdale, Mississippi Reared in Gulfport, Mississippi Resident of Alexandria, Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi
Died	October 9, 1996 (aged 73) Jackson, Mississippi Resting place: Lakewood Memorial Park in Jackson
Spouse	Lucile Grogan Batson Children: Dona Batson Martha Ellen Batson Schuyler Batson, Jr. Jo Sellers Batson Wren B. Hickman

Schuyler Morris Batson, Sr. (February 10, 1923 – October 9, 1996),^[1] was a Southern Baptist clergyman from Louisiana and his native Mississippi.

Biography[edit]

His grandfather, Randolph "Ran" Batson (1863-1956), built a vast acreage of timberland across Mississippi and started a major reforestation program.^[2] Batson was one of four children of John Oscar Batson, I (1884-1956), and the former Nellie Mae Nickolson (1884-1973).^[3] He was named for an uncle, Schuyler Batson (1901-1949).^[4] Batson was the twin brother of Ellen Rose Breed (1923-2012), a Baptist laywoman from Jackson, Mississippi. The brother and sister were born in the rural Hillsdale community south of Lumberton in southern Mississippi and reared in Lyman and Gulfport in Harrison County. The two graduated in 1940 from Gulfport High School.^[5]

His brothers were Roy Glen Batson, Sr. (1907-1986) who established a hardware store in Jackson in 1952,^[6] and Dr. Oscar Randolph Batson, Sr. (1916-2004), the dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and vice chancellor for medical affairs in the 1960s and early 1970s.^[7] Batson was a cousin of Dr. Blair E. Batson (1920-2018), for whom is named the Blair E. Batson Hospital for Children in Jackson, an entity of the University of Mississippi.^[5][8] Another cousin, John Oscar Batson, II (1924-2019), was a son of Schuyler Batson's uncle, Claud Lafloy Batson (1892-1948). Like their grandfather, he too was engaged in the timber business with holdings across the South, including Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. A graduate of Vanderbilt and Yale University, this Batson taught forestry at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. In 2011, he was inducted into the Mississippi Forestry Hall of Fame, as had been their grandfather years earlier. Portraits of Randolph and John O. Batson hang in the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum in Jackson.^[2]

Batson married the former Lucile Grogan (1927-2009), a daughter of Kenneth Forbes Grogan, Sr. (1886-1975) and the former Effie Bigby (1900-1995) of Edwards, Mississippi, to the west of Jackson. Mrs. Batson graduated from Baptist-affiliated Mississippi College in Clinton. The couple served the Lord Jesus Christ at churches in Indiana, the Emmanuel Baptist Church on Jackson Street in downtown Alexandria, Louisiana, and the First Baptist Church at 431 North State Street across from the state capitol in Mississippi.^[9] In Alexandria, the Emmanuel church established a family life center under Batson's leadership. He was thereafter one of twenty-two pastors at the large historic First Baptist Church in Jackson, established in 1838.^[10]

The Batsons' son, Schuyler Batson, Jr. (born March 24, 1955), a graduate of Bolton High School in Alexandria, Louisiana College in Pineville, and the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, has been since January 2017 the Classic Worship pastor at the White Rock campus of large Southern Baptist Lake Pointe Church in Dallas, Texas.^[11] Married to the former Debra "Debbie" Traylor, the daughter of the late Barney and Maggie Traylor of Port Barre in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, Batson, Jr., was formerly the music minister at Lakeside Baptist Church in Dallas, which merged with Lake Pointe.^[12] The other Batson children are Dona Batson (deceased), Martha Ellen Batson (born May 6, 1951) of Madison, Mississippi, Jo Sellers Batson (a son born October 4, 1957) of Pasadena, Texas, married to the former Jan Johnson, and Wren Hickman (born April 28, 1964) and her husband, Michael Edward "Mike" Hickman of Dyersburg, Tennessee.^[9] A grandson, Jordan Schuyler Batson (born June 1, 1986), is an administrator at the University of North Texas in Denton.^[13]

Schuyler and Lucile Batson and his sister are interred at Lakewood Memorial Park in Jackson.^[1][9] Other Batson family members are interred in Poplarville in Pearl River County, Mississippi.

See also[edit]

Other Alexandra-Pineville clergy:

• John Alley
• Glenn Bryant
• Joy Dara
• Thomas James Spencer
• T. F. Tenney

References[edit]