Cookie Day has become a tradition on the campus of The Baptist College of Florida (BCF) in Graceville. Each semester, BCF First Lady, Ruth Ann Kinchen, spends days baking homemade cookies that she distributes to students, faculty, and staff of the college. All parts of the campus population celebrate the day when the "Cookie Lady" makes her visit. During normal seasons, the First Lady delivers large boxes crammed with a wide variety of cookies to each residence hall and office. During the COVID-19 era, the scene changed a bit. In the beginning there was a discussion of whether or not Cookie Day should be cancelled. That discussion was short lived when Kinchen vetoed it. Her ongoing statement for several years has been, "These students do not have their mothers here to make them cookies, so I will." Faculty and staff members appreciate that commitment, since they also benefit from the First Lady's baking skills and goodies this semester from BCF Old Testament Professor's wife Dawn Freeman.
Once the decision was made that there would be a Cookie Day this semester, the logistics were addressed. Rather than cookies being placed in containers in a mixed mass, they were placed in separate bags so that each person would receive treats that had been protected from possible contamination. When asked about the process of placing cookies in individual sealed bags, Kinchen stated, "Well it was more work, a lot more work, but that was the only way that I could figure to provide the added assurance of safety. Not having Cookie Day was certainly not an option. Therefore, you did whatever is necessary to make it happen." That Can Do and Will Do attitude is just one of the indicators of the love that the BCF First Lady has for her special campus family. So, for this year at least, BCF Cookie Day is In the Bag.