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To help others as someone helped me”: Glenda Huff looks back on a career
Glenda Huff ’76 looks back on a career of ministering through financial aid
Story by Kyle Mize
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
know that opening that door and going into that office was going to change my life.”
She was warmly greeted by Spencer Lewis and Jim Valentine, who were then the director and assistant director of student aid respectively. They spent time with her and told her about a wide range of financial aid options including scholarships, grants, loan programs and on-campus employment for students.
“Those men were so nice to me that day,” she says. “I hadn’t even applied for admission, and they sat down and outlined everything for me. They showed me how I could afford it.”
That caring, helpful attention made a positive impression, and before long she received an update with a plan in place.
“About a week later, they sent me a letter that said, ‘Come back and talk to us, and we can put you to work right here.’”
Huff started right away, even before the semester started, and has been in the financial aid office ever since.
She enjoyed her days as a student at HPU in the early 1970s. She has vivid memories of registering for courses in the library and spending time in class learning from favorite professors. She still remembers the number of the room in Veda Hodge Hall she shared with her friend Lavon Nelson (#319) and has her bill from her first semester as a student.
“It looks very, very small now,” she says, “but to me it was a lot of money.”
She remains grateful to the financial aid staff from her years as a student worker for the support and encouragement they provided to her. She says Alicia Daniel, Lana Wagner ’97 (who later became the university’s registrar), Aleta Chambers and Linda Chancellor were “fantastic, the cream of the crop.”
Through those experiences as a student worker, Huff learned the fundamentals of what would be her life’s calling.
“I learned that the main purpose of that office is to help students find sources of money to pay for college,” Huff explains. “I learned that the office coordinates all the federal, state, institutional and outside sources of aid. I learned that the office has a unique opportunity to counsel students and get to know families in a way that’s not possible in other offices.”
She worked in financial aid all four years except for a brief time in spring 1976 for student teaching as part of her elementary education major. Wagner, who served as loan collections officer, left in February 1976 to stay at home with a newborn baby and, as spring Commencement neared, Huff
Glenda Huff still has the first invoice she received as an HPU student. Her charges for the fall 1972 semester totaled $958.00.
was offered the position.
“I went to work in May, right after I graduated,” she says. “I think I graduated on a Saturday and went to work on Monday.”
She and her fiancé, Joe Huff ’78, planned to get married in June 1976, so the full-time job became available at a perfect time. In subsequent months, she moved into new roles as positions in the office became available – first as assistant director and then, in November 1977, as director.
Harold Preston, who was then HPU’s business manager, offered her the job that she has held ever since.
“If it hadn’t been for Harold Preston …” she says. “He’s the one who took a chance on me.”
She credits former HPU staff member Grace Gray with being a particular help as Huff took on the new leadership role. Gray agreed to move from the business office to financial aid to assist.
“Grace Gray came over with me and started the same day I did,” Huff recalls. “She knew nothing about financial aid. Harold Preston said, ‘I’ve got a good person to come over and help you.’ She graciously came and she and I learned together. She didn’t have to move from the business office, but she did. She was wonderful. She worked with me more than 20 years.”
Continuing from past to present, Huff is eager to credit her co-workers.
“I’ve had some phenomenal people to work with in this office. For instance, Lana Wagner worked with us for a long time until she moved to the registrar’s office. Penny Gammill was here for years. Sandra Alexander worked two different times with us. There have been so many wonderful people. Sometimes people will ask, ‘How have you done this so long?’ It makes it easier when you have people you like to work with, and there are extraordinary ladies who work in our office – Ferrisa Childs, Kim Pickard, Marsha Larremore and Lisa Haley. I’m very fortunate.”
From her days as a student worker through today, Huff has witnessed nearly half a century of HPU’s history. She has worked with seven presidents and two interim presidents. She remembers making copies in Old Main and having meetings in the “blue room” and the parlor in Veda Hodge Hall before the residence hall was remodeled. She mentions the “H” Pond and the Freedom Fountain, and laughs when recalling that the financial aid office was once housed in what was then HPU’s warehouse.
The last time she relocated offices was in fall 1984, when the Packer Administration Building opened and the financial aid office moved from its warehouse location. She’s the only person in the Packer building who has had the same office since the facility opened.
“It sounds silly, but you get attached to the buildings,” she says. “Sometimes I find myself walking around and I think, ‘You know, it’s been 40 years and it still feels like yesterday.’ Just the overall atmosphere, the people, the buildings. Howard Payne has such a rich heritage. You see where God’s hand has intervened and made things come together and placed the right people at the right time. Sometimes the history of Howard Payne is very humbling. You think of all the people before us. It would be wonderful to have a reunion of all the people who have been through here.”
Through the years, Huff has also gotten to know a vast number of HPU students. She grows attached to students as well as their families after spending so much time with them in preparing their financial aid packages. She remembers the names and faces from years past, which sometimes reappear sooner than she may expect.
Glenda Huff is pictured with, from left, Ferrisa Childs ’86, assistant director of student aid; Lisa Haley, financial aid advisor/new student coordinator; Marsha Larremore, financial aid advisor/grant and scholarship coordinator; and Kim Pickard, financial aid advisor.
“Former students come back and bring their kids and ask, ‘Remember when I was here?” she says, laughing. “My initial reaction is, ‘You’re not old enough! What are you doing back here?’ It is gratifying when they bring their children back to me years later and say they want to bring them to Howard Payne.”
With each new wave of incoming students, the essential purpose of Glenda Huff’s team remains the same: To make an HPU education financially accessible to as many students as possible. From her perspective, as a person who has been busy at this work for more than 40 years, the key is remembering this process is about people, not spreadsheets, formulas or calculations. She refers to the “mutual goal” she shares with each family – to help each student get that college diploma.
“When I see a bunch of numbers on a page, those represent a lot of real-life people,” she says. “We’ve always tried to not think of students as statistics. There are so many stories there – they’re all so individual. Every day, no matter what I’m doing, I’m thinking, ‘This is affecting people.’ I feel such a responsibility to the students and to HPU to do the best I can.”
Unfortunately, despite everyone’s best efforts, not every student who wants to attend HPU is financially able. Huff says the hardest part of her job is when every possibility has been explored and the financial obstacles are insurmountable.
Still, despite the challenges, she has a hard time giving up as long as there might be at least one more option left to pursue.
“Sometimes I’ll be working on a file and I’ll say, ‘I’m going to put this aside for a little while,’ and then a light bulb goes off and I’ll think, ‘I think this particular scholarship would work for this one!’ and I can go back and match it up. That’s always a good feeling when you can come up with something.”
Each new day brings new opportunities to assist students and their families, and Huff prepares for each day’s encounters.
“Each morning, I pray for God’s guidance,” she says. “I pray that He will give me wisdom, discernment, understanding, compassion, patience and fortitude. I know that the decisions we make every day affect students’ lives.”
As her days as an HPU staff member draw to a close, Huff reflects on some long-ago lessons.
“As the years have gone by, it just becomes more and more evident to me that what I learned as a work-study student still holds true,” she says. “To be effective in our office, you have to feel a calling. You have to feel that our work is a form of ministry. If you don’t, you get bogged down in the day-to-day pressures and the work load, and you lose sight of what your real purpose is.”
She thinks of that day in July 1972 when she visited HPU’s financial aid office on her first visit to the campus.
“I have always felt that God guided my footsteps that day,” she says, “and His plan for me was to help others as someone helped me.”
HPU has been important in the lives of many members of my family. Joe came to Brownwood in 1974. He has an “Old Main memory” that on the first day that he came on campus, as he was leaving Old Main, I was coming up the sidewalk to enter Old Main. He said that he spoke to me and I ignored him, but it all worked out okay because we were married two years later! Joe worked part-time in the business office (1974-1976) and was later the HPU bookstore manager (1977-1982). He graduated from HPU in 1978.
Both of our sons, Michael and Marc, attended HPU. Amber graduated in 2004 with her bachelor’s degree and in 2017 with her master’s in instructional leadership. Two of my sisters, Marsha Larremore and Bonnie Adams, attended HPU and at one time all three of us worked in the Packer building (Bonnie in the president’s office and Marsha in the cashier’s office). I have had three nephews and two nieces attend HPU. Amber brought her three children to Homecoming this year so that they could begin to think about becoming Yellow Jackets.
My job often required long hours that included nights and weekends. My family has always been supportive and understanding of the time I spent at the office. I could not have done this job for so many years without Joe and his willingness to help so much at home.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 has always been one of my favorite verses: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (KJV). I think God led me to Howard Payne in July 1972 and He gave me a purpose. The “season” has now come for me to move aside and let someone else continue with that purpose and carry on the legacy.
I have been asked what I am going to do when I retire. First and foremost, I am going to do whatever Joe wants to do. He has been waiting patiently for me to retire for some years now. He has planned several trips that didn’t happen because something always came up at work or conflicted with some commitment I had. Secondly, I am also going to spend lots of time with our three grandchildren, Grayson, Avery and Taylor. And third, I love to read. After all of these years, I am finally going to have time to read something besides federal and state regulations, policies and procedures manuals and audit guides!
