Carolinians in Virginia Making Arrangements for Evangelist Billy Sunday's Trip to Greensboro, Feb. 16, 1919

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Sunday, Feb. 16, 1919

Carolinians Come to Richmond to Arrange Greensboro Trip

W.B. Vaught, banker, and E. Colwell business man, both of Greensboro, N.C., were here yesterday to assist in arranging for Billy Sunday’s trip the Carolina city tonight. They explained last night that they had arranged to have a special Pullman placed at Main Street Station at 9:30 tonight. The car may be entered at any time after that by members of the party. Mr. Sunday is expected to go to it immediately after he takes his nightly “rub down” following the final sermon of today.

The party will arrive at Greensboro tomorrow morning, when it will be met by A.L. Brooks, former United States Senator, at whose home Mr. Sunday will be entertained. At 10:30 an automobile will take the evangelist out to Sedgefield, the palatial country home and game preserve owned by J.B. Cobb, millionaire tobacconist, and one of the most prominent of North Carolina’s business men.

Mr. Sunday will spend most of the day hunting quail on the preserve. Late in the afternoon he will return to the Brooks home, preparatory to preaching a sermon in Greensboro’s largest theater. This building, Messrs. Vaught and Colwell stated, will seat 2,200, and is perfectly heated and ventilated. Its acoustics, too, they say, are perfect.

“Mr. Sunday is the finest fellow in the world,” declared Mr. Pitzer of the Sunday party, enthusiastically discussing the trip with the visitors yesterday. “I have lived with him, slept with him, been entertained in his home, worked with him under all sorts of conditions, and I still say he is just that—the finest fellow in the world!”

The North Carolinians exhibited no surprise.

“That is what Myers always told us,” they agreed.

“Myers” is Dr. Charles F. Myers, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro, and a son-in-law of Dr. James Power Smith of this city. He has been in Richmond several days attending Mr. Sunday’s meetings.

“Now when we get back to Greensboro Monday night,” said Mr. Colwell, catching up the threat of his narrative, “everything will be in readiness for Mr. Sunday to preach. We have secured the theater which has the largest seating capacity of any auditorium in Greensboro. The acoustics are perfect, and the stage is sufficiently elevated for Mr. Sunday to be well above the heads of the audience.