Jean and Grundy Janes Introduction

© Adam Glover

Jean and Grundy Janes’ legacy at Georgetown College stretches back to the early 1950s, when both were students here. Jean graduated first in 1955, and Grundy followed soon after in 1957. By 1961, Grundy had graduated from Southern Seminary and, in the following year, took up a post at Lafayette County High School, where he served as assistant principal from 1964-65. 

Then, in 1966, something changed. On June 24, Grundy and Jean were appointed by the Foreign Mission Board and sent to Costa Rica to attend language school. Finally, in October 1967, they arrived in Temuco, Chile, a country the couple was to call home for nearly three decades. By 1969, Grundy was Director of the Colegio Bautista (Baptist High School) and Jean was head of the school’s English department. Both held their respective positions until retiring in 1995. 

In 1999, Grundy and Jean were instrumental in securing Georgetown’s academic partnership with the Colegio. Shortly thereafter, a five-year partnership between the two institutions was formalized, which not only gave students from Georgetown the opportunity to spend time in Chile, but also gave students from the Colegio the opportunity to pursue four-year degrees at the College. As evidence of its success, the partnership was renewed in 2004 for an additional five years. 

That same year, I had the opportunity to travel to Chile with group led by Grundy Janes. Being in Chile with the Janes is a bit like having an unrequested royal escort everywhere you go. Everyone in Temuco knows them—not only knows, loves them. And not only in Temuco. Our first day in country, at the Santiago airport, I looked over the top of a book to see Grundy speaking in his characteristically fluid Spanish to a Chilean man. I laughed to myself in a kind of bewilderment that would very much become the soundtrack for the next three weeks. After 15 minutes in a city of 5 million anonymous faces, 4,500 miles from Kentucky, I thought, Grundy Janes has already met someone he knows. I didn’t realize it then, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, Grundy and Jean know everyone in Chile—evidence, no doubt, of a life dedicated to sharing the love of learning and the love of Christ with an entire country. 

Even today I feel a tinge of nostalgia for my experience in Chile—a kind of connection to the people and the landscape that I am still unable to articulate.  With this in mind, it is my pleasure to introduce the couple who, in many ways, made that experience possible: Mr. and Mrs. Grundy Janes.