Patriot Bible University - History

History

In 1979, Patriot University was established at the Dallas, Texas home of school founder Lonnie Skinner. Then in 1985 it became affiliated with the now defunct Hilltop Baptist Church in Colorado Springs and became "an external studies mission of Hilltop Baptist Church." Beginning in March 1988, the State of Colorado Higher Education Commission gave Patriot "Religious Authorization", which they define as "A bona fide religious postsecondary educational institution which is exempt from property taxation under the laws of this state and whose degrees or diplomas have no state recognition". In 1993, its address was listed as 6915 Palmer Park Blvd in Colorado Springs with Wayne Knight as President and Director. This is Hilltop Baptist Church's address, which was founded in the late 1970s by Bill Knight and the current pastor is his son Franklin “Wayne” Knight. The current PBU president is Wayne Knight and his father, Bill Knight is PBU chancellor. Also in 1993, admission requirements included that applicants must be "Bible believing Christians."

In 1997 Patriot's street address was also listed as the residential address of Lonnie Skinner. In July 2004, the school changed its name to Patriot Bible University and moved out of College Heights Baptist Church and into a building in the small town of 1,700 people in Del Norte, Colorado. According to property records, Hilltop Baptist Church bought the Patriot building, which was valued at $232,495 and it currently has tax exemption. Skinner is a Baptist pastor, Patriot's Executive Director and an instructor. As of 2007, Patriot's Del Norte address is listed by Zabasearch.com as the residence of Lonnie Skinner and the Skinner family (Lonnie, Toni, and possibly Rachael).

In 2006, Patriot wrote that "Hilltop Baptist Church of Colorado Springs is our sponsoring organization." Also in 2006, said it had about 400 active distance learning based students, and issues approximately 50 to 100 Christian religious degrees (Bachelor's, Master's and Doctorates) per year. In 2007, it had a total of four employees.

In November 2011, PBU's President and Hilltop Baptist pastor Franklin “Wayne” Knight was arrested on four counts for knowing about his niece molesting a child at Hilltop Baptist School, but "failed to comply with a state law requiring them to report it to law enforcement. According to court affidavits, Knight "displayed a consistent pattern to manipulate and control the situation--not only among the faculty at Hilltop Baptist School--but also among parent, church members and students" and "The pastor also allegedly lied about having conducted a lie detector test." That same month Hilltop Baptist Church was sued by parents and teachers who reported cases of sex abuse to Pastor Wayne Knight who told the employees he had "previous knowledge about the matter and promised to investigate," but instead fired the employees a month later. In February 2012, Knight took a plea deal where he "pleaded guilty to being an accessory to a crime and failure to report suspected child abuse," and plans to move to Texas. In 2010, Hilltop Baptist School closed after enrollment dropped. As of 2012, Hilltop Baptist Church was closed and its website is no longer online.