Dear Korea Christian Academy Alumni and friends,
I received the email from KS asking for a note regarding
my days at KCA. I have fond memories of
our time there, and I continue to have frequent opportunity to hear about
friends from my generation there.
I noticed on the TCIS homepage in the history of the
school it states that 1966-1970 the old dorm was torn down and the gym
constructed. This is incorrect, for the
old dorm was very functional through 1968 and we were not blessed with a
gym. I think that this destruction
/construction did not take place until about 1970, though someone after my
generation would have to give the exact dates.
In the late 1950’s, as my sister Alice reached junior
high age, the missionaries in the southern part of the country began to take
interest in forming a school for MK’s.
My parents didn’t want to send children to Seoul, which would have put us 6 hours away from Chonju and out
of reach in the event of another war. I
know that my father, who in the 1930’s traveled from Mokpo to Pyongyang to
school, felt strongly on this and helped push the Presbyterians on this. The 3 missions got together and formed KCA,
and my sister was the first boarding student (1959)—living in a room in what
was then the single school building. My
brother Barron began there in 1961, and I went in 1962.
By the time I started there we had a little contingent
coming up from the Cholla direction, including Lintons from Soonchun,
Codington’s and later Browns,
Dietricks, from Kwangju, Hoppers
and later Cranes, Seels, Foltas, Grubbs, and Keller from Chonju, Findlays from
Iri, and later numerous others.
Missionary children came from Taegu and Pusan direction, and some
industry kids from Ulsan and other industrial complexes. The school went from 1-3 per class, to a big
6 in my graduating class of 1968—Herb Codington, Steve Linton, Jeff Grubbs,
Debbie Schowengerdt, Beth Spitzkeit, and me.
There was some distinction between the dorm kids and the
city kids, and the mission population of Taejon seemed to grow rapidly as
various groups located there to be close to the school while reaching out
elsewhere in the country for their work.
We were all good friends and had a great time in the
dorm, in school, in scouts, and in sports.
There were occasional tag football games against SFS, but most of our
activities were very local. Often a
group of us would walk down past the college, across the tracks, and catch a
city bus into town to a movie. We
enjoyed putting a penny on the train tracks and getting it smashed while
waiting for the bus. We had lots of
freedom and safety getting around what was then a much smaller Taejon. We all complained about the rules and the
food, but actually did quite well.
Friday stew was considered particularly onerous since it was the weeks
leftovers, but we boys enjoyed it when Mrs. Robinson let us have the cook add
to it a lot of sparrows we had caught in nets (we didn’t tell the girls about
it until after everyone had eaten it).
We had contests to see who could kill the most rats and mice on the
campus grounds. We enjoyed winter ice
skating on the rice paddies in front of the college. We had no TV until near my senior year, and our fun was rather
low tech but enjoyable.
We only got to go home about every 6 weeks, with
transportation being much worse making travel times far longer.
There was no such thing as problems with drugs, sex,
STD’s, tobacco, or alcohol for us.
Although we caused some trouble we usually behaved pretty well. We did try to make little bombs with powder
from caps or photographer’s flash magnesium, and I recall one getting a bad
burn and another blowing off the tip pad of his finger, but we survived it.
We had regular devotions and church activities, and
student led Bible studies at times
Most of us went on to the states to colleges, and overall
our performance in college was quite good.
I would put the average college performance of the high school class of
1968 up against any other high school in the US.
I am interested
in the number of KCA grads that have gone on to medical school. I believe I was the first in that line, but
many more have followed me. I would
like very much to make a list of medical alumni of KCA/TCIS, and would be
interested in people sending me their names and addresses.
KCA was good, and though not without some problems I
appreciate my years there, and those faculty and staff that made it possible.
Thanks,
David H. Hopper, MD
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