Abilene Christian University’s Dr. Carisse Berryhill, professor of library science, was presented the Distinguished Christian Service Award on May 4 at Pepperdine University’s 68th annual Bible Lectures.
The special services librarian oversees ACU archives and the Callie Faye Milliken Special Collections in Brown Library, and is a renowned scholar of Restoration Movement history. She was on hand in Malibu, Calif., to speak at Pepperdine’s lectures on “Here is Water: Baptistry Paintings and Spirituality in Churches of Christ,” a research topic fueled, in part, by ACU’s Blanche Perry Collection.
The Milliken Special Collections features 6,000 catalogued titles and more than 7,000 photographs. The Blanche Perry Collection will be featured in an upcoming issue of ACU Today magazine. Perry was a 20th-century artist who painted baptismal murals for congregations around the nation in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s – an era when women’s roles in the church were severely limited.
Berryhill, who joined the ACU faculty in 2004, serves on the board of the American Theological Library Association. Pepperdine’s award acknowledged her as a “respected historian of the Stone-Campbell Movement, whose dedicated work with librarians, archivists and historians, has helped to identity, collect, preserve, and digitize many historically valuable documents and publications …”.
She joins other former recipients of Pepperdine’s award related to ACU , including Dr. Everett Ferguson (’53), Dr. John C. Stevens (’38), Dr. Neil Lightfoot, Dr. Carl (’52) and Smitty (Smith ’94 M.S.) Brecheen, Dr. Paul (’52) and Gladys (Shoemaker ’52) Faulkner, Dr. John (’55) and Evelyn (Forrest ’56) Willis, Dr. Royce (’64) and Pam (Handy ’65) Money, Dr. Tony (’59 M.A.) and Barbara Ash, Dr. James (’64) and Carolyn (Roberts ’65) Thompson, Dr. Charles (’68) and Judy (Bailey ’69) Siburt, Dr. Jack (’73) and Jeanene (Perkins-Warren ’74) Reese, and others.