The story of how BMA was founded and how it came to be at its particular location is both interesting and remarkable.  Indeed, the details of the account serve to validate the opinion of many constituents and alumni that God’s hand was clearly evident in the founding of the academy. The roots of K-12 education on this spot trace back the early 1900s to the tiny community of Talowah, Mississippi, which is located about two miles south. Records show that the first Seventh-day Adventist was a nurse and colporteur, J.L. Waller, who believed the area would be an excellent place for a school, church and sanitarium. By 1922 a church was organized and a school was formed that eventually grew to more than 75 students in eleven grades.  By the late 1930s, however, enrollment waned as many of the charter members moved to other locales, such as Collegedale, TN (For example, one of the original students in the Talowah school was O.D. McKee who later founded McKee Baking Company and the “Little Debbie” brand).  Another of those original students later returned with a desire to see Adventist education firmly established in the area.  His name was Ralph Hendershot, and he was directly involved in the series of events that led to the formation of BMA.

In the 1940s, Ralph Hendershot established a friendship with I.H. Bass, who owned thousands of acres in Lamar County, many of which were planted in Pecan trees.   Hendershot regularly asked Bass, who was not a Seventh-day Adventist, to give to the annual Ingathering Campaign, which supported the work of the SDA church.  For years those requests were rebuffed, but in 1957 Bass expressed interest in supporting education if that was an option for giving.   Hendershot told Bass about the SDA school system and within a matter of days a meeting was arranged with Bass and the Alabama-Mississippi Conference (Now Gulf States) officials with the dream of establishing a boarding school.  At Bass’s invitation, LeRoy J. Leiske, Conference President; Oscar L. Heinrich, Education Secretary; and L.E. Aldrich, Conference Treasurer (soon after replaced by J. Henson Whitehead), selected a choice site of land that included a pecan grove, cleared land and pines.  On August 25, 1957, the conference voted to accept the gift and just eleven months later the first BMA Board Meeting was held.  The academy opened September 10, 1961.

The events between August 25, 1957 and September 10, 1961 saw the constituents of the conference work together in marvelous ways.  The various churches conducted separate fund-raising projects to provide resources for specific buildings and rooms; members donated calves for the dairy farm; Pathfinder clubs collected money to provide the entrance sign (which was dedicated September 14, 1958) with J.P. Coleman Governor of Mississippi in attendance.   A conference wide project known as the “Million Penny Campaign” concluded April 5, 1959 with a widely publicized celebration of the achievement.  Members of the Mississippi National Guard participated by shoveling the 1,242,221 coins into buckets and loading them on trucks for transport to a bank in New Orleans where the four tons of money was deposited.  These funds were used to construct the administration building.    Several individuals played key roles in the actual construction and preparation of the facilities for the start of school including O.O. Smith (architect), S.A. Brown (builder), and the Heinrich family (construction, development, architecture and interior design).