“I was flabbergasted … totally unprepared and unsuspecting.”

That’s how Columbia International University alumnus Dr. Cecil Beach described his thoughts when South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette presented him with The Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor. It is presented in recognition of a lifetime of extraordinary achievement, service and contributions on a national or statewide scale.

For Beach, that service has been primarily in the field of Christian education as an administrator and teacher, as well as serving for 42 years on the board of the SC Association of Christian Schools (SCACS). It was at the 2024 SCACS conference that Beach was surprised with the honor.

“I had no clue that was coming,” Beach said in a phone interview, making clear that CIU helped give him a foundation for life. Beach graduated in 1965 when CIU was known as Columbia Bible College or CBC. He recalls godly and revered professors such as Frank Sells and Buck Hatch as having a huge impact on his life, and challenging his nominal Christianity.

“God just broke me into tiny pieces, and I just surrendered to Him everything without any reservation at all,” Beach said.

He also noted how the foundational expectations of daily life at CBC was exactly what he needed at that time in his life, beginning with the wake-up bell in the dorms at 6:00 a.m.

“At 6:30 you were sitting at your desk with an open Bible,” Beach said, recalling breakfast at 7:00 in the Dining Hall and sitting in class by 8:00.

“That routine, since then, has basically been my routine, except I’m getting up at 5:30 now,” Beach says with a laugh.  

Beach was an ambitious student, earning his bachelor’s degree in three years, before setting off for Costa Rica to do missionary work. He left behind his CBC girlfriend, Phyllis (Cole). But during that time away he proposed marriage to her by letter, which was a two-week exchange.

“For a phone call, you had to make appointments with long-distance operators to communicate with somebody in the States,” Beach said explaining why he didn’t propose over the phone, adding, “She said, ‘Yes.’” in her reply letter.

Beach’s long career in Christian education includes administrative roles at Sumter Bible Church & Christian School in Sumter, South Carolina and Northside Christian School in North Charleston, South Carolina. But prior to those roles Beach was in ministry with the Navigators for a year, and worked for five years in management for Belk Department Stores. Along the way, he earned a master’s degree in Spanish from the University of Virginia and a Doctor of Education from Bob Jones University.

Beach says God brought all of these together in a career path he could not have imagined when he graduated from CBC.

“Before God put me into education I was thinking one day, ‘What in the world are all these different pieces of this puzzle going to make when it finally becomes a picture?’” Beach recalled. “When I got into education, I needed every (piece).”

And as you might expect, Beach is today a big advocate of Christian education, “believing in it wholeheartedly.”

“The big deal is teaching a biblical worldview on history, science, math and politics, because that’s not part of the culture anymore,” Beach said. “Most of the kids that are going to be pastors 20 years from now are sitting in Christian schools right now. The next president of the United States is sitting in a classroom somewhere. It might as well be here (in a Christian school).

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