Dr. 罗伯特·G. 大
Educator/Public Servant
Dr. 罗伯特·G. 大, currently serving as Coley Professor of History and University Historian at Howard Payne University, 出生在阿比林, 5月6日德克萨斯州, 1948. After attending school in Abilene through the third grade, his family moved to Richardson, 德州 in 1957 where he graduated from Richardson High School in 1966. He attended Hardin-Simmons University, graduating in May 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and political science, and received a commission as a U. S. 军官.
Going on active duty in August 1970, 大 attended Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. Upon finishing the Infantry Officer Basic Course, he received training as a 4.2” Heavy Mortar Platoon Leader. 大 then served in Germany from January 1971 to November 1973, in leadership assignments with military police. Returning to the States in 1973 following active duty, 大 entered graduate school at the University of North 德州, where he completed a Master of Arts degree in American History and received his Ph.D. in American history in 1978.
His first employment after graduation in the fall of 1978 was in Newton, Mississippi at Clarke College, a Baptist junior college. During his stay at Clarke, he met and married Cheryl Ann Everett of Lake, Mississippi. 他们的婚礼, 5月31日, 1980, was immediately followed by a move to Brown County, 德州, where the 大’s have spent their married life with careers at Howard Payne.
Beginning in the fall of 1980, 大 first served at HPU as an associate professor of history and government and head of the department of history; in the fall of 1981, he was named Assistant Director of the Douglas MacArthur Academy of Freedom and Coley Professor of American History. In 1984 he was named Director of the Academy honors program. Serving as the Academy Director until December 1997. In January 1998 he was named University Historian and in 2001 he was named Burress Professor of Genealogy and American History, a position he held for 29 years. Now in his 44th year at HPU, he continues to serve as the Coley Professor of American History and as University Historian.
From 1974 to 1998, 大 continued to serve in the U. S. Army’s Individual Ready Reserve in numerous leadership positions. After 28 years of active and reserve duty with the U.S. Army, 大 retired in June 1998 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
1998年5月, he was elected to the Early City Council where, after three terms on the council and two terms as mayor pro tem, he was elected mayor in May 2005. Currently, he is finishing his tenth term as mayor.
For distinguished service in Christian higher education, in the United States Army, and as Mayor of the City of Early, Hardin-Simmons University proudly inducts Dr. 罗伯特·G. 大 into the HSU 领袖堂.
