This Is the
Lord’s School
A payroll crisis brought Dr. Walter Grubb to the end of himself. What followed reshaped his understanding of leadership, provision, growth, and who truly owned The King’s Academy.
From survival
to something more.
In Session III of A Venture of Faith, Volume II, Dr. Walter Grubb remembers a defining season of crisis and provision, the academy’s expansion into a K–12 school, the growth of its international community, and a deeper understanding of its Christian mission.
The story continues
By January 1995, Dr. Walter Grubb had spent months trying to stabilize The King’s Academy. Then one rainy morning, the numbers on his desk made something painfully clear.
Crisis gave way to growth.
The academy reaches a financial breaking point, followed by a remarkable series of gifts.
The King’s Academy completes its expansion into a full K–12 school.
Tennessee Baptists approve a significant increase in support for the academy.
Enrollment eventually rises from roughly 120 students to more than 500.
He had worked as hard as he knew how. It still was not enough.
Dr. Grubb had become president the previous summer. He inherited financial strain, leadership transition, personnel turnover, damaged relationships, and the burden of reassuring a school community that had endured years of instability.
His instinct was to work harder.
He tried to solve the problems, carry the responsibility, and keep everything moving.
By January 1995, the pressure had become overwhelming.
That morning, the financial numbers were undeniable. There was no reserve waiting to be discovered. There was no administrative adjustment large enough to make the problem disappear.
The academy did not have enough money to meet payroll.
So Dr. Grubb prayed.
I can’t do it. It is impossible. I quit.
Dr. Walter Grubb
It was not a polished prayer.
It was surrender.
For months, he had approached the academy as though everything depended on his ability to keep it together. Now he had reached the place where he could no longer pretend that was true.
Nothing immediately changed.
Payroll was still approaching. Bills remained unpaid. The institution was still fragile.
But something had changed in its president.
He stopped trying to be the one who could save the school.
Within days, the story began to change.
About six days after that prayer, a parent and trustee came into Dr. Grubb’s office.
She explained that she and her husband had been praying. They believed they were supposed to help the school.
She placed a check on his desk.
The first answer arrived when the school needed it most.
The significance was larger than the amount.
Dr. Grubb had just reached the point where he admitted that he could not manufacture the school’s rescue. Now provision had arrived through circumstances he had not created.
The academy’s recently adopted name suddenly carried even greater meaning.
The name itself was a reminder of ownership.
The lesson was becoming clear.
The school did not belong to its president. It did not belong to a board. It did not belong to one generation of students, employees, alumni, or families.
Its leaders were stewards.
This is not your school. This is my school.
Dr. Grubb’s recollection of that conviction
And the provision continued.
Dr. Grubb contacted former trustee Luther “Coot” Ogle and asked whether he would consider matching $50,000 if the academy could raise the same amount.
Ogle agreed.
The first gift, combined with another $10,000 raised by the Board of Trustees, reached the threshold. Ogle then provided the matching gift.
Jean and Louise Gann soon added another unexpected act of generosity. They donated two lakefront lots near Fort Loudoun Lake that they had once planned to use for a retirement home.
On a rainy July morning, a sale sign was placed on the property. Before Dr. Grubb and Jean Gann could leave, an interested buyer appeared.
The property sold for $75,000.
One gift became another.
Given by a school family.
Enough to complete the match.
A promised matching gift.
Sold after an extraordinary sequence of events.
The school was not suddenly wealthy. It was still fragile. But the doors stayed open.
Provision did not eliminate the work still ahead.
The financial gifts mattered enormously, but they did not instantly repair years of instability.
The academy still needed to rebuild trust. Enrollment needed to stabilize. Faculty and families needed confidence.
Its relationship with the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association also remained damaged after serious athletic sanctions.
With help from academy graduate and attorney Dwight Stokes, Dr. Grubb prepared an appeal to the TSSAA Board of Control.
The process required weeks of work.
The academy was ultimately reinstated with conditions. It was not a complete victory, but it was movement in the right direction.
Personnel stability was equally important.
Some employees left following the previous leadership transition. The people who remained carried more responsibility. They worked, served, reassured families, and kept believing that the school had a future.
Slowly, the campus began to steady.
Needed reassurance.
Needed confidence.
Needed continuity.
Enrollment hovered between roughly 120 and 145 students during that early period.
It was not dramatic growth.
But it was not collapse.
That gave school leaders enough stability to begin asking a different question.
What if The King’s Academy became more than a secondary school?
What if students could begin here younger and grow up at The King’s Academy?
An old building became the doorway to a very different future.
The answer to expansion was already sitting on campus.
The Luther Ogle Building had originally served as Seymour Primary School.
Decades earlier, the academy had released property to the Sevier County Board of Education so the county could build the school.
After the county eventually moved into a newer facility, the old building sat largely unused.
In 1977, trustee Luther Ogle purchased the building from the county and gave it to Harrison Chilhowee.
Nearly two decades later, that gift became central to the academy’s future.
The challenge was obvious.
The building contained roughly 22,000 square feet, and the academy did not have the resources to renovate it on its own.
Dr. Grubb remembers volunteers coming from across the eastern United States to help restore the building.
Volunteer teams stayed in campus dormitories, ate in the cafeteria, and spent their days working.
The renovation happened gradually.
First came sixth grade and a stronger middle school program. Younger grades followed.
By 1997, The King’s Academy served students from kindergarten through twelfth grade.
Pre-K would come later.
The change transformed more than the organizational chart.
Young children changed the atmosphere of the campus. They brought energy and joy.
They also changed the experience of older students.
Suddenly, younger Lions were watching them.
Younger students looked up. Older students learned that someone was watching.
Enrollment began to grow.
Over time, the school moved from approximately 120 students to more than 500 in the early 2000s.
Others noticed the change too.
In 1998, academy graduate Guy Milam made a motion at the Tennessee Baptist Convention meeting in Kingsport to increase the school’s support.
The academy received an additional $100,000 in recurring budget support.
Only a few years earlier, the school had wondered whether it could meet payroll.
Now the trajectory looked different.
students
students
Growth was not only about numbers. It was about who the school was becoming.
During the same period, the boarding and international programs were growing.
Dr. Grubb credits Dr. Steve Sharp with helping create a campus culture that welcomed students from around the world.
Relationships developed with families and schools in Brazil, South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, Wales, and other countries.
International students added tremendous richness to the campus.
Some strengthened athletic teams. Others brought languages, customs, experiences, and perspectives many East Tennessee students might never otherwise have encountered.
But the program’s importance went far deeper than enrollment or athletics.
Some students arrived carrying burdens few teenagers should ever have to carry.
For some students, TKA became home when home felt very far away.
Dr. Grubb remembers twin sisters from Rwanda whose country descended into civil war while they were students in Tennessee.
He remembers a student from Bosnia who lost contact with his family as war unfolded there.
In those moments, the mission became tangible.
The academy was not merely providing classes for students who happened to live overseas.
It was being asked to become family.
Those experiences gave greater weight to the Christian community the school said it wanted to be.
The academy began asking what faithfulness should look like in every part of school life.
As enrollment strengthened and the academy became more stable, leaders were able to think beyond survival.
Academic expectations rose.
The school reaffirmed its college-preparatory roots and began asking deeper questions about what it meant to educate students from a distinctly Christian worldview.
Faculty members explored what Christian education should mean in history, science, literature, athletics, student life, and every other discipline.
One example was the ECO Classroom, an outdoor experiential program led by Dr. Steve Sharp with strong support from biology teacher Tracy Green.
Students camped, hiked, canoed, rappelled, and experienced whitewater rafting.
The outdoors became part of the classroom.
ECO Classroom
Spiritual formation also became more intentional.
Bible classes remained important, but leaders understood that Christian formation could not be confined to one class period.
Chapel continued. Spiritual emphasis weeks continued. Teachers and outside speakers challenged students. Residential students were connected with local churches.
But the larger question was cultural.
What should Christlikeness look like when students compete? When they succeed? When they lose? When they study? When they disagree? When they live together?
The school began talking more intentionally about core values and the convictions that should remain constant regardless of circumstances.
What followed was not one miraculous moment that solved every problem.
It was years of provision, sacrifice, volunteer labor, repaired relationships, expanding programs, stronger academics, international community, and a clearer mission.
And underneath all of it was a lesson Dr. Grubb could not afford to forget.
The King’s Academy belongs to the King.
Every generation inherits the same responsibility.
Steward it faithfully.