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In mid-April, Trinity Christian Academy held a ceremony in honor of Eddie Cox and Kathy Smitson, who grew up on the farm where the school’s new Cowen Campus is located. 

Trinity Christian Academy’s Cowen Campus currently teaches 6th—12th grade and plans to add the lower grades during the next phases of construction.

In addition to the two sisters, the ceremony celebrated the sponsors and craftsmen who made the Cowen Campus’s new benches possible. These two benches outside the private school’s Jessamine County campus were crafted from timbers from the 1800s farmhouse that originally stood on the property. The farmhouse was made from trees that once stood on the Hulett Family Farm in the late 1600s. 

Mike Patrick was honored for salvaging the timbers. Also honored were corporate sponsor Brad Rizer from Christian Brothers Automotive, craftsman and Trinity teacher Devin Johnson, and the Hatton and Littrell families, who purchased plaques for the benches to support the project. 

According to Trinity’s Advancement Coordinator, Ed Hardin, “Kathy and Eddie weren’t directly involved in the process [of opening the Cowen Campus], it had been their family land for a number of years. And interestingly enough, Kathy’s granddaughter goes to Trinity. So we recognize those connections.”

Trinity’s new Cowen Campus in Jessamine County is located on one of the earliest settlements in the County. It belonged to a family in the early 1800s, according to Hardin. “Once that homestead was established, after three or four generations, the Hullett family purchased the farm from the [original owners],” he said. Kathy and Eddie’s father was the fourth generation of Hulletts who had the farm. Eventually, the sisters ended up with the farm. “The sisters are the ones that sold the land initially and were under the impression that that house and the barn would be preserved. That agreement fell through, the land changed hands again somehow.”

The land became available, and another family saw that the land was for sale. That family was the Cowens. “Dr. Cowen and his wife initially stopped and prayed at the property and said, ‘Our school is getting to the point where we do need additional space, and if you see fit to figure out a way to allow the school to have that property, we would be grateful.’ Having no idea that by 2016, they would be the ones who would be called to that. They purchased the land and gifted it to Trinity Christian Academy, so we were able to have it debt-free,” Hardin said. 

But although Trinity now had the land it needed to expand, they had more work to do in collecting funds to start building. 

The benches were not something the school had planned, but a random gift from a kind neighbor.

In early fall 2024, Trinity held a grand opening for its Cowen Campus. That’s when Hardin was approached by a school neighbor, Mike Patrick. Patrick asked Hardin if the school was getting ready to hold the grand opening. Hardin told him yes, and the two talked for a couple of hours. 

Patrick told Hardin about his amateur photography of flora and fauna in the area, and that when the farm started being developed, he was bummed. “He said ‘I understand progress has to happen but I’m a bit of a historian so I kind of hated to see that house and barn go down,’ but then he found it it was a Christian school, and he said ‘I could not imagine to have a better neighbor,’ which is so encouraging to me,” Hardin said. 

Patrick had collected some timbers from the original torn-down farmhouse. He told Hardin he was planning on doing some minor woodworking with them, and that’s when Hardin said, “I’d love to make a bench from one of those. ” Patrick generously told Hardin he could have it. 

Kathy’s son had already secured timber from the farmhouse for inside the building in the Trinity room, but now Hardin was on a mission to make this bench idea a reality. Hardin returned to Patrick for more timber to craft a second bench for symmetry purposes, and Patrick gave Hardin and Trinity the second timber. 

Devin Johnson, a craftsman and teacher at the school, had the timbers transformed into benches. Christian Brothers Auto covered 60 percent of the cost for Johnson’s work on the two benches. “One neighbor to the left of us provided the timbers for us, the neighbor to the right of us helped pay for it, and essentially our neighbor within converted the timbers and did the craftsmanship, so it was a full group effort,” Hardin said. 

“Part of our mission statement is essentially to provide a classical Christian education for the glory of Christ and for the good of the bluegrass. So we want to be good neighbors, but also be able to produce good neighbors in the future,” Hardin said. 

Before the Cowen Campus, Trinity was only located in Fayette. Hardin said the long-term plan is to shift the campus completely to Brannon Crossing, “But that’ll be a lengthy process,” Hardin said. 

The next steps for the Jessamine County Cowen Campus are its third phase: completing the gym for Trinity to use and rent out to the community, and adding classrooms on the building’s second floor. The fourth phase will include adding more buildings to teach elementary students. Hardin said the school still has to generate more funds outside of tuition collection to complete the third and fourth phases.