Peter C. Nelson was a native of Denmark and a graduate of Rochester Theological Seminary.  He drew on years of experience as a Missionary Baptist pastor and evangelist in his work for the General Council, which began in 1925.  When he had decided to change his affiliation, he was fifty-seven and had been ordained for more than thirty years.  His extensive evangelistic campaigns had brought him to the attention of Assemblies of God leaders. (Blumhofer..1989).

Three Bible schools were brought together to form Southwestern Bible Institute.  The first, known as Southwestern Bible School, was established at Enid, Oklahoma, in 1927 under the leadership of the Reverend P.C. Nelson.

Rising like Paul of old, with whom so many have compared him, out of hardship, Peter Christopher Nelson, a native of Elisthi, Denmark, stands today an example in word and deed to the Students of Southwestern, among whom he is better known as "Daddy".  Fatherless at the age of eleven, he learned the art of providing for himself, and in spite of the many difficulties that face such a boy of a large family, young Nelson struggled through the common school of his day, finished with an B.A.  degree at Dennison University, and was graduated in 1902 from Rochester Theological Seminary.  The Cappiopean Literary Society conferred on him the degree of RH.B. in 1897.   At twenty God swept away every fear in a sound conversion and union with the First Baptist in Harlan, Iowa.  There it was that he met Miss Myrtle Garmong ( a school mate) who in 1893 became his wife.  This young couple had dedicated their lives to missionary work, but being refused an appointment because of physical conditions, they held pastorates in Iowa's and Ohio and traveled with an evangelistic party.  After a miraculous healing that followed a very serious accident, Reverend Nelson went far and wide preaching his new-found truth-healing.   Upon invitation, he returned to Enid for a second meeting where he built a tabernacle to which people from ten states came to be healed.  Two thousand five hundred conversions resulted from that campaign.  After meetings in various , the party that frequented Enid, finally, because of a growing conviction that God was calling them back to establish a Bible School, left California to purchase the old school house that now bears the name, "SOUTHWESTERN", from whose doors have passed some five thousand students.  (Excerpts from the 1940 Torch).

Works Cited:Blumhofer, Edith L. 1989.  "The Assemblies of God".  Gospel Publishing House, Springfield, MO.  c1989.The Torch. 1940.  Southwestern Assemblies of God College Yearbook.Southwestern Assemblies of God University Catalog.