Bubba Cagle, facilities manager at First Baptist Church in Clinton, Miss., poses with his look-alike, a 4-year-old at the church's preschool who dressed like Cagle on Sept. 19 on “Dress As What You Want To Be When You Grow Up Day."
CLINTON, Miss. (BP) — Ask First Baptist Church of Clinton, Miss., preschoolers about their professional aspirations and you’ll get the gamut from Power Rangers, Cinderella, veterinarians, Mr. Bubba … Bubba Cagle, that is, church facilities manager extraordinaire.
Mr. Bubba is the fix-it man at First Baptist Clinton, Weekday Preschool Director Kim Evrard told Baptist Press of the church that averages just over 500 in Sunday worship.
“Mr. Bubba does everything for us. I mean, all we have to do is text Mr. Bubba and he’s on it,” Evrard said. “He doesn’t just take care of us. He takes care of our whole church.”
Perhaps it naturally flows that preschoolers would want to be like Mr. Bubba.
When the preschool held its annual “Dress As What You Want To Be When You Grow Up Day” on Sept. 19, one 4-year-old boy exclaimed, “When I grow up, I want to be Mr. Bubba.”
Dressing like Mr. Bubba garnered the pupil and Mr. Bubba himself star status in a video that has gone viral since church Communications Director Laura Ivy posted it online. The video was shared Sept. 23 on NBC’s The Today Show and is making its rounds among the major networks, with ABC also planning to air the clip, according to the church’s Facebook page.
“I love kids. I’ve got four grandbabies myself,” Mr. Bubba told Baptist Press. “To me, there’s no more honest person than a child.”
Cagle is a volunteer firefighter in nearby Pocahontas, Miss., is a First Baptist member, and owned a home repair and remodeling business for 16 years before taking the job at the church eight years ago.
“I enjoy it,” he said of his job. “Of course it’s a challenge when you need to get things done.” He’s the only employee in the maintenance division, he said, although the church employs custodians.
Cagle didn’t expect to see a personal look-alike among the preschoolers.
“It’s just a surprise that anyone would even look up to me like that. I’m just an average Joe here,” Cagle said. “He’s a good kid. All the kids here are. I interact with them. I’m walking by all the time and they’ll go to hollering, even out of their classrooms: ‘Mr. Bubba.’
“And on the playground. My goodness, I walk by there and they all line up inside the fence hollering at me. ‘Come in here and play with us.’ I’m like ‘I can’t. I’ve got work to do.’”
Cagle sees Jesus as the real headliner at the preschool.
“I just hope that they grow up and follow the Lord and do good things in life,” Cagle said. “There’s so many bad things in this world, you just hope that they don’t get mixed up with the wrong groups.”
Evrard appreciates that the video obviously brought joy to someone’s day.
“It’s a feel-good video, and it was sweet, and I think we need that so much,” Evrard said. “And if our little church and this little preschool can be a small part of that, I love it. I love everything about it. I’m glad that we got to be a part of making somebody smile.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)
