A Place to Call Home
How God led Dr. Robert and Mrs. Cheryl ’91 Mangrum to HPU
by Julia Catlett ’21
In the fall of 1979, Bob and Cheryl Mangrum met, not knowing that the course of their lives would lead them to Howard Payne University – the place where they would spend the next 40+ years. He is the university historian and professor of history and government at HPU, while she is the associate director of admission. Neither of them had any association with the university before they moved to Texas in 1980. How did two people from different parts of the country find each other and the place they would call home?
Bob was born in Abilene and grew up in Dallas. He attended Hardin-Simmons University for four years, was in ROTC and commissioned, then went on active duty in Germany in the U.S. Army. After coming home in 1973, he started graduate school at the University of North Texas, where he earned both his master’s degree and his Ph.D. After attending the University of North Texas, Bob began his first teaching job at Clarke College, a small Baptist college in Newton, Mississippi. Bob was hired by the college’s president, Dr. S.L. Harris, who was a 1948 graduate of HPU.
“About four months later,” Bob recounted, “Dr. Harris said, ‘Well, we’re leaving. If I ever hear of a job, do you want me to keep you in mind?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I want to come back to Texas.’”
Cheryl Everett was born in the little town of Forest, Mississippi. After graduating high school, she decided to go to nursing school and then ultimately pursue a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. After earning her RN license, she needed to take bridge courses before being admitted into a BSN program. In 1979 Cheryl decided to attend Clarke College as a non-traditional student. On her first day of classes, she met a young woman named Martha.
“We were introduced to each other,” Cheryl remembers, “and she said, ‘Hey, have you ever heard of Howard Payne University? My brother graduated from Howard Payne University and that’s where I plan to go after I graduate from Clarke College.’ I had no idea that we would wind up here.”
That first semester at Clarke College, Cheryl was enrolled in Western Civilization I, and Bob happened to be the professor. At the beginning of the next semester, Bob and Cheryl were formally introduced by a mutual friend. In January 1980, they began dating and by that May they were married. Bob and Cheryl had initially planned to get married that August, but a call from Dr. Harris changed their plans in more ways than one.
“We had just finished finals and I got a call from the former president of Clarke, who had left and was now at Howard Payne,” said Bob. (Dr. Harris was serving as the dean of the School of Social Sciences, director of the Douglas MacArthur Academy of Freedom and chair of the sociology department.) “He said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a history job if you’re interested.’ I flew over to Dallas, and my dad and I drove over here.”
Bob saw the president, signed a contract and rented an apartment – all in one day.
“So, we were engaged by mid-March,” Cheryl said. “We had initially planned for an August wedding, but when he said he got the job here, I said, ‘It’s just too expensive to move twice.’”
Cheryl turned in her two-week’s notice at the hospital where she was working, and they spent the next two weeks getting ready for the wedding.
Cheryl’s dad, who was a pastor, performed the ceremony with the help of her grandfather.
“I said, ‘Dad, if you start crying, I’m going to start crying too, so don’t you cry,’” Cheryl remembered.
"Being here has been one of the biggest blessings in our lives."
The reception was held at her parents’ house and, after that, they set out for Texas. When they got in the car after the long day, the emotions finally caught up to Cheryl.
“Bob had this beautiful cassette tape of Louis Armstrong singing ‘We Have All the Time in the World.’ Well, I just go, the water works go. He asked, ‘What’s wrong, what’s wrong?’ And I said, ‘Nothing, nothing!’ I guess it was that emotional release, realizing that it was finally happening.”
Once they arrived in Brownwood, they found their new apartment. This was the first time Cheryl had ever been to Brownwood, though Bob had made one quick tour of the city in his college days at HSU.
“During the fall semester of my freshman year, the BSU (Baptist Student Union) had a picnic or a weekend campout at the lake, and I had no car,” he remembered. “I had to wait until a bunch of others were coming down, and we got here well after dark. We went out to the lake, and nothing seemed to be going on. So, we got back in the car and drove down to the traffic circle. The three of us decided, ‘Let’s go back to Abilene.’ And that was the only time I had been to Brownwood before I got here.”
While moving to Brownwood was an adventure, it also came with some challenges.
“I was so homesick,” said Cheryl.
“We suffered through several weeks of ‘Why am I here? Why am I not back in Mississippi?” added Bob.
“I went through a grieving process,” Cheryl said, “but I knew that this was where God was calling us and leading us. There was no doubt about it.”
Through it all, Bob and Cheryl knew that HPU was where God wanted them to be.
During their first year in Brownwood, Bob worked as a history professor at Howard Payne, and Cheryl worked in home health. A year later, Cheryl joined Bob at HPU. Her first job at HPU was working in the registrar’s office in HPU’s legendary Old Main, where she worked for three years before the building was destroyed in a fire. After working in the registrar’s office, she moved to the admissions office in 1988.
Throughout Bob’s time at HPU, he has served as a history professor, assistant director of the Academy program, director of the Academy program, chair of the history department and university historian. In 1998, when he became university historian, he began working on what would become the book For Howard Payne My All: 125 Years of Christian Higher Education and Service, 1889-2015.
In 1998, Dr. Rick Gregory ’78, the president of HPU at the time, was interested in preserving the university’s history.
“He created the position and asked me to capture the history and begin to share it,” said Bob. “So, he’s really responsible for the fact that there’s a university historian position as well as putting together material and putting it in book form.”
Bob and Cheryl’s time at Howard Payne spans over the past four decades. When they first were married, they didn’t anticipate that HPU would be the place where they would invest such a major portion of their lives.
“We moved over here summer of 1980 and started the fall semester,” Bob remembered. “I told Cheryl, ‘Don’t get comfortable – we won’t be here very long.’”
Now on year number 43, they realize that Howard Payne is the home to which God has called them. In the years since moving to HPU, the Mangrums have been actively involved in the community. Bob was elected the mayor of Early in 2005 and has held the position ever since. When he has free time, he enjoys working with model trains and is a member of the National Model Railroad Association. Cheryl loves music and especially enjoys playing piano. The Mangrums are members of Early First Baptist Church, where Cheryl sings in the choir and Bob teaches Sunday school. In the midst of all their activities, Cheryl still found time to earn a degree from HPU.
“It was one of those things that I always wanted to do,” Cheryl said. “I wanted to become an alum of Howard Payne because I just love this school so much. Being here has been one of the biggest blessings in our lives. Working with the students every day, it’s just been a wonderful experience.”
“I second that,” said Bob. “What keeps me going is the interaction with the students.”
Bob and Cheryl agree that the whole reason they’re at HPU is to help students become who God has called them to be.
“Just to be part of that and to help open that door of opportunity, to allow the Lord to begin working in their lives – that’s the intrinsic reward,” said Cheryl. “I’ve said it many times – people walk through the door here not by chance but by design.”
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