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Chuck Baily

baily_chuck.jpg“As impressive as it was at the time, in hindsight it actually seems even more amazing,” says Chuck Baily. “Here was Dave Diehl, a 23-year-old, becoming a major influence in the lives almost 100 college students in his first year on staff.”

Dave Diehl was among the first CCO staff workers to reach out to college students in the early 1970s. When he arrived on the campus of Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1971, Chuck Baily and his soon-to-be-wife, Shirley, were seniors.  “I had just become a Christian in July,” Chuck remembers, “and Shirley and I were recruited almost immediately by Dave to help start a fraternity/sorority Bible study. It grew from four to fifty in one semester. Dave individually mentored us that year, as well as a number of other students. Dave took time each week to meet with me. We often studied the Bible together and prayed. He took time to answer my questions, and as a new Christian, I had plenty of them. In my last semester, Dave took me to go along with him and [CCO staff worker] Ted Schumacher to the Ligonier Valley Study Center almost every week. Getting to personally know and learn from R.C. Sproul, along with the conversations on the hour trip up and back really impacted my faith.”

Chuck and his wife, Shirley, graduated from IUP in 1972, and a year later, they joined CCO staff. The stamp of Dave Diehl’s ministry continues to manifest itself today as Chuck invests in the lives of countless college students and young adults.

Chuck and Shirley became the first CCO staff people to work as residence hall directors, working with students at Waynesburg College (now University). “Being a new Christian and also having a job in the family business waiting for me at graduation meant I wasn’t able or ready to join the CCO after graduation,” Chuck says. “But after one year, as my wife and I stayed in touch with the CCO, we decided to take the plunge. We both quit full-time jobs. I left my family insurance agency, and Shirley quit her position as a middle school teacher. We managed a large residence hall together, and our dorm apartment was open from 10 a.m. until midnight almost seven days a week for three years.

“When I joined the CCO, Dave Diehl was my immediate supervisor and mentor. I was growing as a Christian before, but under his leadership and encouragement, things really took off in my life. We were again on the phone regularly going over my weekly CCO reports. I still have some of them with Dave’s written comments.”

David, the oldest of Chuck and Shirley’s three children, spent his first two years of life living in the residence hall. And when David grew up, he and his wife, Jen, served on CCO staff as well. And if Chuck and Shirley have anything to do with it, at least one of their grandkids will be joining the CCO beginning around 2022.

Since leaving their CCO posts in 1976, Chuck and Shirley have continued to be committed to Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, and to the CCO’s ministry. Chuck went back to his family business, Baily Insurance Agency, originally founded in 1890. Shirley went back to teaching, and has taught at Waynesburg University for the past 24 years. Chuck and Shirley are elders at First Presbyterian Church, and they are active members in their community. Chuck co-founded Greene County Habitat for Humanity in 1984, and the Greene County College Opportunity Program, which provided local high school students a CCO staff mentor between 1986 and 1994. He also works with “at risk” teens. Both Chuck and Shirley remain deeply committed to college ministry.

“For the past two years, my biggest passion has been working with Rev. Ben Scott in a pilot project of Washington Presbytery to reach post-college young adults in Washington and Greene Counties,” Chuck says. “Much of this ministry has been influenced by what I learned through the CCO. You know, I don’t even want to think about what our lives might have been like without the CCO.”