DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Reverend Doctor John David Robnett — and friends, this one is worth pulling over for. Now, every great institution has a founder, and every founder has a story. John David Robnett was born in Missouri in 1845, and Missouri gave him a proper education — Westminster College, William Jewell College — and eventually the Baptist ministry claimed him through ordination.
He was a man built for big ideas. He just hadn't found the right one yet. That changed in 1883, when Robnett was called to serve as pastor at the First Baptist Church of Brownwood, Texas.
Central Texas. Red dirt country. And it was there — right there in Brownwood — that he met a man named Noah Turner Byars.
Now, Byars was born in 1808, which means by the time Robnett showed up, this man had been walking the earth and carrying a vision for a good long while. He was a pioneer missionary, and he had a dream burning in him: a Baptist college, right here in the heart of central Texas. Robnett heard that vision and didn't just nod politely.
He embraced it. Together, Robnett and Byars helped found the Pecan Valley Baptist Association. And in 1889 — the year after Byars died, mind you, the man never saw it himself — that association agreed to establish the college Byars had dreamed of.
Some visions outlive their dreamers. That's the kind that really stick. Now here's where the story gets interesting, and a little bit personal.
Robnett, serving on the first board of trustees, made a trip back to his hometown of Fulton, Missouri. He went home with his hat in his hand and a cause to match it. And with the help of his brother-in-law — a man by the name of Edward Howard Payne — he came back with sizable pledges and funds secured.
The trustees named that fledgling college in honor of Payne's generosity. Howard Payne College. Still standin' today.
Robnett wasn't done working for it, not by a long shot. He served as first board president. He served as college president.
And through it all, he kept raising funds — chief fund-raiser, the marker calls him — for the institution he helped bring into the world. In 1896, he returned to the pulpit, this time as pastor of Gaston Avenue Baptist Church in Dallas. He served there until his death two years later, in 1898, at the age of fifty-three.
He was originally buried on the Howard Payne College campus, near the Old Main building — as fitting a resting place as a man like that could have. But in 1911, upon the death of his wife, Dollie, John David Robnett was reinterred in Brownwood's Greenleaf Cemetery, so they could be together in the end. A college named for a brother-in-law's generosity, built on a dead missionary's dream, raised up by a Missouri preacher who came to Brownwood and decided this place was worth everything he had.
That's the story the marker tells. And out here on the road, that's enough.
What the marker says
Founder of Howard Payne University, John David Robnett (1845-1898) was born in Missouri, where he was educated at Westminster and William Jewell colleges and was ordained to the Baptist ministry. In 1883, Robnett was called to serve as pastor at the First Baptist Church of Brownwood, Texas. There he met pioneer missionary Noah Turner Byars (1808-1888) and embraced Byars' vision of a Baptist college in central Texas. Byars' dream was realized when the Pecan Valley Baptist Association, which he and Robnett helped found, agreed in 1889 to establish such a college. As a member of the first board of trustees of the school, Robnett visited his hometown of Fulton, Missouri, where he secured sizable pledges and funds with the aid of his brother-in-law, Edward Howard Payne. The trustees named the fledgling college in honor of Payne's generosity. Dr. Robnett continued as chief fund-raiser for Howard Payne College while serving as first board president and later as college president. He returned to the pulpit in 1896, as pastor of Gaston Avenue Baptist Church in Dallas, and continued there until his death two years later at the age of 53. Originally buried on the Howard Payne College campus near the Old Main building, John David Robnett was reinterred in Brownwood's Greenleaf Cemetery upon the death of his wife, Dollie, in 1911. (2001)