“To help others as someone helped me” Glenda Huff ’76 looks back on a career of ministering through financial aid Story by Kyle Mize
LINK / SPRING 2019
H OWA R D PAY N E U N I V E R S I T Y
PHOTOS BY JARVIS GREEN
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hen Glenda (Gober) Huff ’76 was right out of high school in 1972, considering options for college, the first place she visited at Howard Payne University was the financial aid office. That first stop on campus was even more significant than she knew at the time. As events would unfold, that office would become her place at HPU for more than four decades. This spring, Huff will retire as director of student aid, bringing to an end one of the longest-running tenures among current HPU personnel. Huff’s total of 43 years of full-time service is second only to Bobbie Price, certification coordinator and graduation assistant, who has served at HPU for 47 years. When Huff’s four years as a student worker are taken into account, she and Price actually arrived at HPU the same year. Though many things have changed through the years, Huff says a few things have remained constant. “Our office still deals with families and students who need our care, our understanding and our guidance,” she says. “We’re still working with two very sensitive areas – folks’ children and their money. We make every effort to demonstrate our willingness to help and to make people feel comfortable and welcome in our office.” A native of Richland Springs, Huff was the valedictorian of her graduating class and planned to go to Tarleton State University, up the road in Stephenville. “Back then, if you were valedictorian, you got free tuition at a state school, and that’s just where everyone told me I needed to go,” she remembers. “I didn’t know anything about Howard Payne except that it was private and expensive, and I didn’t have a lot of money.” One day that July, the coach from her high school mentioned that he was taking another student to visit HPU and suggested that Huff ride along with them. Despite her reservations about the financial obstacles and whether the visit would do any good, she did go with them that day and made one stop on campus. “The only place I really went that day was the financial aid office.” At the time, the office was located on the second floor of Walker Memorial Library. “I’ll never forget,” she says, “I walked in there and I thought, ‘I’ll pick up some forms and we’ll leave.’ I didn’t
