For 40 years, Melba Voda was a fixture at the Louisiana Baptist
Convention building in Alexandria.
An administrative assistant to four state convention executive
directors, she retired in June 1989, leaving behind her “family” of
secretaries, directors and others at the Baptist Building.
For 40 years, Melba Voda was a fixture at the Louisiana Baptist
Convention building in Alexandria.
An administrative assistant to four state convention executive
directors, she retired in June 1989, leaving behind her “family” of
secretaries, directors and others at the Baptist Building.
“I feel like Im leaving my family,” Voda said
in a May 27, 1989 article that appeared in the Alexandria Daily Town Talk newspaper.
Voda witnessed numerous changes during her denominational tenure,
both in Alexandria and the world.
When she started as secretary in 1949, Brooklyn, N.Y., fielded
a Major League Baseball team, and Alaska and Hawaii were not part of the United
States.
During her time as secretary, she witnessed the relocation
of state convention offices from downtown Alexandria to what then was a mostly-undeveloped
area of the city on MacArthur Drive. The third floor of the building initially
was unfinished and used for storage. By the time she left, the third floor was
in full use.
Voda came to the Baptist Building when then LBC Executive Secretary
W.H. Knight asked her to join him as his secretary. At the time, the name of
the head of the LBC executive committee was executive secretary instead of the
presently-used executive director.
“Dr. Knight was an elderly gentleman with a sense of humor
most didnt know he had,” Voda recalls.
“When he was away from the office at meetings, he called
without identifying himself and asked for Dr. Knight. Sometimes, I wouldnt
guess who he was until he told me.”
Voda worked with Knight until he died in 1951. T.W. Gayer served
as interim director until the executive board hired Floyd Chaffin as the new
state leader.
When Chaffin resigned to return to Texas in 1955, Robert L.
Lee became the interim executive secretary. A year later, the executive board
elected Lee as full-time executive secretary.
“He did a great job for 30-something years,” Voda
says. “There couldnt have been a finer man than Dr. Lee, and he was
very popular in the state.”
Voda says she felt the urge to spend more time with her family
in 1959, so she decided to work as a part-time employee.
“Though I retired when I had my first child, Dr. Lee asked
if I would consider coming back as an assistant in his executive office,”
Voda explains.
“He said he would rather have someone part-time than someone
who didnt know how to do all the things I did. We worked it out where
Id be a 60 percent employee so I could have all the benefits.”
Though she was now a part-time employee, Voda says she assumed
many of the duties she performed as secretary – taking minutes at staff
and state convention meetings, compiling and editing the annual Book of Reports
and Convention Annual and other “odd jobs.”
Voda continued to work at the Baptist Building until her second
retirement in June 1989. At the time, Executive Director Mark Short had worked
as convention leader for two years.
Voda says her husband, Carl, never questioned her working at
the Baptist Building. She says he understood the job was a calling for her.
“What a wonderful 40 years,” Voda says of her tenure.
“I thank the Lord for this privilege of serving with these godly men.”