A LEGACY OF LITERATURE
A LEGACY OF LITERATURE
DRS. EVELYN AND NANCY ROMIG '04 ON THE LIFELONG VALUE OF READING
DRS. EVELYN AND NANCY ROMIG '04 ON THE LIFELONG VALUE OF READING
BY REKEBAH STERLING ’18
An unusual thing happens when a person opens a book and reads it: Two perspectives are represented simultaneously – the reader’s and the character’s. The reader is then invited to sit with the feelings, quirks and decisions of another and ask, “Why is this person doing this? How does this make me feel? What would I do in this situation?”
This process of introspection can shape the reader into a more understanding, well-rounded and empathetic person. Dr. Evelyn Romig and her daughter Dr. Nancy Romig ’04 have spent their careers equipping Howard Payne University students for just that.
On a summer day in 1978, Evelyn Romig and her husband, Peter, were visiting his hometown of Brownwood. She had nearly completed her doctorate from Rice University and was in search of a teaching opportunity, when she decided to see if HPU had an opening. As Evelyn climbed the oiled-wood steps of Old Main, she didn’t know much about Howard Payne, but she did know three things: She wanted to teach English Literature, positions teaching English were scarce and HPU’s English department was on the third floor.
“Before I walked down the stairs, I had a job offer,” she recalls.
In 2014, Dr. Nancy Romig stood in front of a class full of HPU students. She had recently completed her doctoral studies and was substitute-teaching courses for the woman who had instilled in her both a love for literature and a love for HPU – her mother. Of course, the position was a temporary one. Nancy planned to search for a full-time position when her mother returned from teaching abroad. To her pleasant surprise, at the end of that summer, she had a full-time job offer from HPU. She and her mother were colleagues for four years until Evelyn’s retirement in 2017.
Today, the Drs. Romig have a combined total of more than 50 years teaching English at HPU. Now several years retired, Evelyn often misses those years spent in the classroom but is gratified knowing the department is in good hands.
“It’s just about as cool as anything can be to have your daughter go into the field that you love and do such a bang- up job of it,” she shares of Nancy. “I was good, but this one is really exceptional.
“For Nancy and her siblings, Robert and Liz, the HPU campus was the backdrop for much of childhood. “
These guys,” Evelyn says, referring to twins Nancy and Robert, “were toddling around Old Main for the last Chime Out ceremony that took place there (1984). Then it burned during finals week.”
Nancy recalls attending numerous HPU events as a child, including Christmas parties and gatherings for Gamma Beta Phi, an HPU honors organization co-sponsored by her mother and a fellow professor, Dr. Jack Stanford. In her entire life, she’s only missed a handful of Homecoming celebrations.
In addition to Dr. Stanford, many of Evelyn’s colleagues became key figures in the lives of her family members, including Dr. Glenn Hopp, Dr. Ed Roth, Dr. Donal Bird, Dr. Gary Gramling ’81 and Dr. Donnie Auvenshine ’75.
Although it was a special place for her, Nancy didn’t initially plan on attending HPU. She gained early admission to Southwestern University in Georgetown and attended her freshman year there with her brother. It didn’t take long, however, for Nancy to realize it just wasn’t a good fit. During a visit home, she met a group of HPU students at a campus event.
“I was introduced to a few people who were a year older than me, and they were all so nice,” Nancy remembers. “I thought, I’ll just go to Howard Payne in the fall and probably transfer out some other time. Then I got here, and everybody was so friendly. I liked my classes and loved living in Veda, so I stayed put. It was very unintentional, but it worked out.
“Of course, in addition to HPU, reading has always been deeply rooted within the Romig family.
“My children don’t know that you can’t love to read,” shares Evelyn.
For Evelyn and Nancy, studying literature extends beyond career preparation or checking a box on a skill set – it’s instrumental in developing a deeper understanding of the human experience.
“Storytelling has always been a way for us to relate to each other and to relate to situations that are unknown at the moment but may be encountered later on,” Nancy explains. “Relatability, human emotion, interactions and sympathy are such key things that reading brings us that other things can’t in quite the same way.”
She adds that the classroom setting brings another important layer to reading.
“Reading is such a solitary thing,” Nancy says, “but then you go to class and it’s meant to be very communal. You’re meant to share your viewpoint with people who are going to see it the same way or process it very differently. This adds to your understanding of the text, which is a lot of fun.”
Evelyn says that, in addition to introspection and connection, reading can lead to a broader worldview.
“If you looked at the facts of my life, they would look incredibly narrow,” she says. “I married young, I have lived in one house for over 50 of my 74 years … but I would never say I have had a narrow life. I have been exposed to broadness of thought and experience and conversation with other people. I think reading expands your world.”
For that same reason, one of Nancy’s favorite classes to teach is World Literature.
“We read literature from all over the world – from India, South America, France, Germany, America – I mean all over,” she says. “The class is themed around this idea of universality – that, hey, humans are humans. What does a French writer from the realist era have to say about us? A whole lot, oddly enough, because as humans we’re still concerned with the same things.”
Evelyn could hardly have predicted the outcome of that first day’s visit to campus – a nearly 40-year-long career teaching English at HPU, and her daughter Nancy’s eventual appointment within the very same department.
“I have felt very much that things look accidental and then I see the hand of God after the fact,” Evelyn says. After reflecting on her early days at HPU, she adds, “I would tell myself that I was becoming part of a great, lasting community: The students I taught would go on to teach my children and my grandchildren, faculty members would become cherished lifetime friends, and the job that I thought was only a short-term thing would become the fabric of my life.”
Although Evelyn’s time as an HPU professor has ended, her influence remains, especially within Nancy’s own classroom.
“I don’t think there is anyone who loves her profession or HPU more than Evelyn Romig,” she says. “If I can get halfway there by the time I retire, I think I’ll have done pretty well.”
Nancy continues to enjoy the daily interactions with students in the classroom as they learn together.
“Every day, I get to come to work and talk about authors I love and teach stories that I think have a lot of relevance and meaning for us – stories that I think will help us figure out how to be human a little better than we might be managing at the moment,” she explains. “For someone who loves literature, there’s nothing more gratifying than that.”
