Ben Lippen Headmaster
In 1952, Robertson McQuilkin became the headmaster of Ben Lippen School, CIU’s
Christian school and conference center, then located in Asheville, North Carolina.
Ben Lippen was going through hard times and the board of directors had decided to
close it. But R.C. McQuilkin, Robertson’s father and CIU’s first president, decided to
give Robertson a chance to turn around Ben Lippen. Robertson once summed up the
situation this way:
“No training, no experience, 25 years old, so they sent me up there. My father never
told me, but what I think happened was, that he had in mind he’d been running the
place from Columbia anyway, so he might as well do it through his son. But that
summer, he died, so I was pretty much on my own.”
On his own except for four other CIU graduates who made the trip to Asheville with
him: Bob Weeber, Wayne Doll, Tony Fortosis and Marlin Bolar.
Bolar today is 88 years old and lives in Tucson, Arizona, where he retired after 29
years as a science professor at California State University, Sacramento. He jokes that
he was “The Science Department” at Ben Lippen because he was the only science
teacher and had to use his skills as a craftsman to build science labs. But despite such
challenges, Bolar says Robertson McQuilkin kept things positive, putting the school
on more solid footing over the next five years.
“Robertson was a man of great faith,” Bolar said in a phone interview. “He was a very
stabilizing influence. When he was in a bad situation, he was rock solid.”
That included discipline of the students.
“He was always warm and very friendly toward the students,” Bolar added. “The
Lord sent him there. That was his ministry. He embraced it totally.”
Robertson McQuilkin
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CIU Today
Fall 2016