David Bowden, a jack-of-all-trades and an Oklahoma Christian University alumnus, was nominated to receive an award recognizing his leadership and success.
The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities is a higher education association and is associated with 181 Christian colleges around the world. The Young Alumni Award is given to someone who has graduated within at least 10 years from a CCCU member institution and has displayed multiple forms of leadership and achieved success in a unique way.
“There’s a few people that have come through here talent-wise in the years that I’ve been associated with this school, but I just think if the right person finds them and the right door opens they’re going to blow-up and just be huge – and I’ve said that about David for many years,” Jeff McMillon, dean of spiritual life at Oklahoma Christian, said.
Bowden – poet, musician, singer and author – said it was a surprise for him when he discovered he was nominated for the CCCU Young Alumni Award.
“I didn’t even know about the award or potential nomination until I saw OC tweet about it and so it was a big surprise,” Bowden said. “It was super kind and honoring of them, so it was a big surprise and a big honor.”
Bowden said he is grateful to be nominated and is glad Oklahoma Christian is supporting him, regardless of the end results.
“It feels great to know your alma mater is behind you and that they are keeping up with what you’re doing, that they care about you,” Bowden said. “Not every school would do that, so it’s really cool to know that the people at OC don’t just care about you up until the point that you graduate, but they care about you afterwards.”
Bowden said this opportunity is all attributed to the glory of God.
“I’m sure that whatever becomes of the nomination or the award will be for His glory and for His namesake,” Bowden said.
Bowden is widely known for his spoken word poetry, an interest that began when he was a sophomore at Oklahoma Christian, according to Bowden. He took a road trip with one of his friends to Chicago to see a band play, where the opening act was a spoken word poet from New York City.
“I hadn’t heard spoken word poetry yet at this point in my life and we heard them perform and in that moment I heard God saying to me, ‘This is what I want you to do for my church,’” Bowden said. “And so I said, ‘I don’t know how to do that, but alright,’ so I started writing on the way home and started performing around campus, around the town and got opened up door after door.”
McMillon said Bowden’s spoken word was profound. “He can preach a whole sermon in a three-minute poem,” McMillon said. “It’s awesome.”
Along with performing spoken word poetry, Bowden is also a singer-songwriter. His most recent album, “I Used to Be in Love”, came out in the spring of 2015.
“He’ll sing and do poetry all in the same song,” McMillon said. “And I can’t believe one person can do all this and he’s working on a master’s degree and he has a two-book deal with Thomas Nelson Publishing. And he’s not even 30 years-old.”
Bowden said it is a privilege to speak the word of God using his abilities.
“It’s my highest honor, it’s my highest joy getting to share the word of God with teens and adults,” Bowden said.
According to McMillon, Bowden started to get a lot of recognition about two years ago, including the opportunity to speak at places such as Life Church. Bowden soon decided he wanted to make his artistry into a non-profit organization, The Poetic Experience.
McMillon said Bowden asked him and 9 others to be on the board of directors for The Poetic Experience, which has maintained McMillon and Bowden’s friendship through a mentoring role. McMillon also said that he is Bowden’s biggest fan.
Sophomore Josh Turpin said he discovered Bowden through one of his YouTube videos, which he said he thought was really good and insightful. Turpin said he was able to gain a perspective of Bowden as a person from the video.
“He would rather focus on the interconnections between people and try to build up relationships as opposed to just sitting around and wasting time on the Internet,” Turpin said.
Junior Piper Mead has seen Bowden perform several times. Mead said Bowden being nominated for the CCCU award shows him Oklahoma Christian cares about the alumni.
“The fact that they’re putting up signs saying to support him and vote for him, I think that’s pretty awesome,” Mead said.
McMillion said Bowden is a great representative for Oklahoma Christian because he is thoughtful and kind. By the way he lives, people see Jesus, but his habits and lifestyle are different than most people, according to McMillon.
“I think that says you can be an individual,” McMillon said. “You can be anybody you want to be when you come to this school and we’re not going to limit you based on how you look, what you drive, what your clothes are, what color your hair is.”
Bowden’s music is available on iTunes and his spoken word poem videos are on YouTube. Individuals can vote on Facebook once a day for the CCCU awards until Nov. 15.
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