Midway College chief guiding school into unserved niches
By Greg Kocher
CENTRAL KENTUCKY BUREAU
Midway College President William B. Drake Jr., with Baby, in front of the Ashland Equine Barn on the college campus.
MIDWAY - On a steamy August morning, Midway College President William B. Drake Jr. trades his gray suit for faded jeans and a polo shirt and goes for a ride.
He boards "Baby," a registered quarter horse and great-granddaughter of Wimpy P1, the first registered quarter horse in the United States.
Then it's off for a quiet morning ride in a nearby paddock accompanied by his daughter, Lara, and Marianne Lehman, Midway's director of riding, and a few others.
Lara, an accomplished rider, said she and her father will occasionally take trail rides around campus. "It's a great bonding time," she said.
Since Drake, 50, took the reins of Kentucky's only women's college, Midway has thrived.
Enrollment was about 900 when Drake succeeded Allyson Handley as president in 2002. This fall, total enrollment will exceed 1,700. Much of the growth is because of 17 satellite campuses in Kentucky and another in Logan, W.Va. And Midway's School for Career Development continues to grow and attract adult men and women who want to take night classes.
Last year, the college bought a neighboring cattle farm and doubled the acreage of its campus. The college used the land to expand its equine programs by turning a former tobacco barn into a horse barn, and making other improvements, all with no long-term debt.
Midway continues to find niches that aren't served by other colleges. For example, this fall at its Somerset satellite, Midway will start a bachelor's degree program in homeland security assessment for business.
Meanwhile, Drake's goals for Midway include increasing enrollment to 2,000 students, doing $5 million in maintenance and refurbishment projects on the Midway campus, and boosting the school's endowment, now less than $20 million, to $50 million.
"I believe very strongly in results," Drake said in an interview. "I am result-oriented in just about every respect, whether it's enrollment growth, financial stability, employee retention. I do hold people accountable because I am (held) accountable by our board."
Drake said if he has a frustration, it is that people aren't aware of what is happening at Midway.
"Many of them think of us as a sleepy little institution over here that is only oriented in one vein, which is to serve traditional-age female students," he said. "We're doing so much more now."
Nevertheless, observers are taking notice how Drake has energized the liberal arts school known for its nursing, education, equine and business programs.
"He has really elevated this college to a whole new level," said Midway Mayor Becky Moore.
Woodford County Judge-Executive Joe Gormley said Midway is "right on the cutting edge" in its partnership with the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. In that so-called "2+2" partnership, Midway offers baccalaureate degrees on the campuses of two-year community colleges and technical schools, thus allowing residents of rural areas to complete a four-year degree in their home communities.
"What Midway has done is made it very convenient for rural Kentuckians to stay at home and complete their degree without having to travel great distances," said KCTCS President Michael McCall. "They provide the courses and we provide the space for them to be able to offer those courses."
Producing more degrees in rural Kentucky is in line with the goals of the state Council on Postsecondary Education, and with the historical mission of Midway College, Drake said. Midway began in 1847 as the Kentucky Female Orphan School, which prepared financially disadvantaged women for teaching careers.
"Always at the core of what I do is to serve," Drake said. "And so, what I set out doing here is to ground what we would do in the historical mission of the college, which was to serve underserved populations of students in Kentucky. That's what drives me."
Drake, 50, was born and raised in Lexington. His father, William Sr., was a civil engineer; his mother, Margie, was a teacher. She nicknamed her son "Butch," a name that friends still use today.
He majored in biology at Transylvania University, and he later received master of divinity and doctor of divinity degrees from Lexington Theological Seminary. He has pastored churches in Jessamine County and in Cottondale, Ala., near Tuscaloosa. He will still occasionally preach or preside over a wedding or funeral.
Midway resident Joel Evans, who acknowledges that he is not a regular churchgoer, said he has heard Drake preach.
"He did a good job, too, from what I could tell," Evans said. "He wasn't a screamer or a shouter."
Drake became associate dean of student affairs at Lexington Theological Seminary, and later became vice president of the Christian Church Foundation in Indianapolis, which raises and distributes money for ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Former Midway College President Robert Botkin hired Drake to be the college's vice president of college relations and development. Botkin, who left the Midway presidency in 1998 after 13 years, said Drake's seminary and fund-raising experience made him well-suited for the job.
"He's not a real pushy guy but he's very focused," Botkin said.
Those attributes -- and the fact that he knew financial aid and had fund-raising experience -- helped Drake to be selected as Midway's eighth president.
Drake sees his work as a college president as an extension of his role as a minister.
"I think about those parallels a lot," Drake said. "I have a volunteer board of trustees, the same way that the minister of a local congregation has a volunteer board that governs his work and supports his ministry. I have charge of a (campus) community and am responsible for the health and well-being of that community like a congregation."
And Midway is associated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) "so there's an ethos around here related to the church."
Dave Scheurich, a Midway trustee and plant manager of Woodford Reserve Distillery, said Drake is grounded in the business of the college. When the question "Can we afford this?" arises at trustee meetings, "Butch is always prepared for those kinds of questions," Scheurich said. "And once that's resolved, people are progressive."
Drake's business-like approach isn't confined to campus. As chairman of the Woodford County Chamber of Commerce, he is also trying to change the nature and culture of that organization.
"The Chamber of Commerce is moving away from being an institution that does pancakes and parades to an institution that's all about economic development," Drake said. "We've done pancakes and parades very well. We've not done a good job of economic development and quality of life."
In other community work, Drake was a member of the long-range planning committee that recommended the 2004 merger of the Woodford County Police Department into the Versailles Police Department. And the annual Francisco's Farm Fine Art and Craft Fair on the Midway campus draws 7,000 people and was named by the Kentucky Tourism Council as one of the state's top 10 festivals and events.
Drake said he and his wife, Ella, want to be involved in the community because the college has "a mission beyond students."
As for the future, Drake said Midway will someday offer master's as well as bachelor's degrees. The school has started online classes, drawing 140 students.
"As we've moved out into other realms of service, such as serving adults, we're still serving women -- 87 percent of our students are women," Drake said. "Yes, we are Kentucky's only college for women. However, I think we are serving women now in a much more enhanced way."
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