Friends and students of pioneering Texas dramatist Paul Baker remembered him Monday as an intensely creative and demanding, yet caring, teacher and director whose lessons extended far beyond the stage.

Baker, who brought national renown to the Baylor University theater department in the 1950s and created the Dallas Theater Center among a resume full of achievements, died Sunday in Dallas at 98 from complications following pneumonia.

The Texas-born Baker came to national prominence in the 1950s as head of Baylor’s theater program. His innovations in direction, production, theater design and teaching, plus personal contacts made during his World War II service, brought the likes of actor Burgess Meredith, actor/director Charles Laughton and architect Frank Lloyd Wright to Baylor.

Paul Baker, former director of Baylor University theater, died Sunday.

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“He often would make the point that everyone created by God had gifts, and every child born into the world was born with the potential for creativity,” recalled Raymond Bailey, pastor of Seventh & James Baptist Church, who studied theater under Baker in the mid-1950s. “My preaching was impacted by him, particularly, the idea of story.”

Waco Mayor Virginia DuPuy studied under Baker as a Baylor student in 1955-57, then worked as business manager for Baylor Theater until 1961.

“It was a lot of responsibility — more than a 22-year-old would be expected to take on,” said DuPuy. “It . . . has served me in community work, business and city leadership.”

Baker’s belief that the arts touched something essential about being human was an idea transmitted to scores of his students in diverse careers, said Waco arts advocate Luanne Klaras.

Baker’s influence in Waco extended beyond the students who passed through his classes during his 29 years at Baylor.

He, wife, Kitty, and daughters Robyn, Retta and Sallie lived in Waco during Baker’s tenure at Baylor, and their work with Baylor Children’s Theatre introduced a generation of young Wacoans to the stage — both black and white — during a time when racial segregation often ruled. Paul Baker played a part in the creation of the Waco Civic Theatre in 1946, and its design recalled Baker’s innovative Studio One at Baylor.

The Baylor dramatist also helped found the Dallas Theater Center in 1959 as a venue to give graduate students a place to stretch their theater skills in a professional environment.

Baker’s tenure at Baylor famously came to an end in 1962 when President Abner McCall, a personal friend, shut down the Baylor Theatre production of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” for its language.

Baker resigned from Baylor and, joined by much of the Baylor Theatre faculty, set up shop in Trinity University’s theater department, where he taught for 13 years before retiring as department chairman in 1976.

DuPuy recalled the time she visited Baker and his wife at their Waelder home shortly after DuPuy’s election as Waco mayor. He had an idea he wanted to share with her and had marked a page in a book for her.

“He was 96 at that point,” she said. “He was a very special human being. I just thought he would live forever.”

A public memorial and celebration of Baker’s life and work is being planned for the Rosewood Center for Family Arts in early December. The family asks that donations in his name be made to the Dallas Children’s Theater or another charity in lieu of flowers.

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Terri Jo Ryan contributed to this story.