Andrew L. Bowman, who died Nov. 17 at age 70, led Union Missionary Baptist Church for more than 30 years, shepherding its transition from a small north City Park church to a Park Hill stronghold that consumed most of a city block.
The facility on Dahlia Street was so big that some congregants wondered aloud what their pastor meant to do with so much space.
“Education,” he replied.
The oldest of nine children, he was born Feb. 3, 1935, in Mileston, Miss. His parents, Willie and Blanch Bowman, viewed schooling, church and pragmatism to be equally essential.
Andrew Lee Bowman studied at half a dozen Baptist seminaries, earning two bachelor’s degrees and an honorary doctorate of divinity.
His church work in Dallas included organizing the local financial branch of the United Baptist Association, which he served as president. The experience schooled him in thinking and spending big, a philosophy Bowman brought to Denver in 1973 to lead Union Baptist Missionary Church.
His first job: Find a new home for the church, which lost its Humboldt Street building to a new civic park. Bowman found a small Park Hill citadel that formerly housed a Catholic church and parochial school.
By May 1985, when the congregation celebrated paying off the $500,000 mortgage by burning the loan papers – an event Bowman called Holy Smoke – the property was worth more than $3 million. Besides the church, the block housed a private school, Excel Baptist Academy, with up to 171 students, and an early-learning center.
“He said there’s homelessness, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy and all types of social ills that he believed a proper education could eliminate,” longtime friend Vivian Wilson said. “Pastor stood for having God in your heart, sense in your head and money in your pocket.”
At least once, Bowman’s reach exceeded his grasp. In 2000, then-Denver Mayor Wellington Webb proposed a land swap, aiming to trade the dilapidated Dahlia Square Shopping Center, a block south, with the Union Baptist Church site.
City representatives offered $3 million and then $4.4 million. Bowman held out for an additional $2 million, reaching a tentative agreement that later dissolved. (Today, commercial developers are rebuilding the old Dahlia Square site.)
Shortly afterward – and with mixed feelings – Bowman left his position at the church he led for more than 30 years.
His funeral was held last week at Zion Baptist Church.
Survivors include son Mack T. Flemming of Dallas; daughter Judy King of Dallas; two brothers, the Rev. Alvester Bowman of Memphis, Tenn., and Arnold Bowman of Country Club Hills, Ill.; two sisters, Hattie Collins of Omaha and Cilva Bowman of Mileston; two grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
