The Link, Volume 12, Number 2, January 1962 Page: 2 of 8
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Education. During his administra-
tion, Daniel Baker C o I I e g e of
Brownwood joined Howard Payne
by merger in 1953, and Howard
Payne purchased the Brownwood
Business College in 1955.
For almost the last two years,
and during a part of his illness,
Dr. Taylor had devoted his time to
writing a history of Howard Payne
and compilation of all available
related documents covering the time
from the school's founding until the
end of his administration. Titled
"The Thomas H. Taylor Collection,"
it will be preserved in the Treasure
Room of Walker Memorial Library,
and is accompanied by his short
autobiography, entitled "This Is
My Life, Such As It Is."
Dr. Taylor actually started his
teaching career at Howard Payne
as a teacher of shorthand and type-
writing while a student at the in-
stitution. He joined the faculty per-
manently in 1907, serving as secre-
tary of the faculty from 1907 to
1913, registrar and business man-
ager from 1913 to 1917 and dean
of the faculty from 1917 until he
became president.
His work with the college, for
which he gave up the prospect of
study in Germany, was perhaps a
natural outgrowth of his childhood,
which he spent in the shadow of
Howard Payne, founded in 1889.
His first memory of Howard Payne,
as reported in later years, was of
seeing the partially-completed ad-
ministration building as a small
boy during a visit to Brownwood
with his father.
A native of Wolf Valley, north of
May in Brown County, he was born
July 5, 1885, son of Henry Percy
Taylor, farmer and Confederate
veteran, and Frances Miranda Les-
ter Taylor.
In January, 1896, the family
moved to Brownwood and Dr. Tay-
lor attended the grade school of
Howard Payne, with Mrs. J. H.
Grove as a teacher. He finished his
first two years of college in 1905
from Howard Payne, when it was
a junior college. An honor gradu-
ate, he received a scholarship from
Baylor University, where he re-
ceived his bachelor of arts degree
in 1907, and the master of arts in
1920. He was awarded the hon-
orary doctor of laws degree by both
Howard Payne and Baylor. While a
student at Baylor, he was secretaryTaylor Memorial
Scholarship Started
A Thomas H. Taylor Memorial
Scholarship Fund has been estab-
lished at Howard Payne as a trib-
ute to the late Dr. Thomas H. Tay-
lor, former president of the school.
The name has been given to a
scholarship fund which had been
established and maintained at the
college by Dr. Taylor himself, and
will be built up with memorial
gifts, which already are coming in
to the college in his honor.
Dr. Taylor's family has requested
that friends wishing to make such
gifts to the college in his honor
make them to his scholarship fund.
Gifts to the fund may be sent in
care of Miss Lena Vinson, alumni
office, Howard Payne.
* * *
to Dr. B. H. Carroll, founder of
Southwestern Baptist Theological
Seminary.
Dr. Taylor's work at Howard
Payne was also a natural outgrow-
th of his own deep religious con-
viction and his devotion to Texas
and Southern Baptists.
He had been a member and
deacon of the Coggin Avenue Bap-
tist Church in Brownwood since
1909, also holding many other of-
fices in the church. He had been
District 16 Baptist Brotherhood
leader and three times was vice
president of the Baptist General
Convention of Texas. He had been
a member of Brownwood's First
Baptist Church from 1903 until
1909.
One of the qualities that helped
to inspire the school's faculty and
friends through the hard years,
made him loved by the students
and in great demand as a speaker
was his dry, homespun humor, in-
toned in a hoarse, Central Texas
drawl. Dubbed "the Will Rogers
of Texas" by Boyce House, he had
been interested in public speaking
since childhood.
Typical of his speeches that were
demanded over and over by Ho-
ward Payne students was his well-
known "Bottle Speech," actually
a demonstration lecture in which
he filled a large collection of bot-
tles with sand to illustrate his point
that the students had varying
capacities to absorb and holdknowledge.
After his retirement and before
his illness, Dr. Taylor traveled
thousands of miles continuing to
make his speeches on behalf of
his college and the other causes to
which he devoted his life. He add-
ed to these speeches with color
slides he made throughout the
Americas as he followed the call of
another of his loves-travel. He
said that in his life, he made "10
thousand speeches and traveled a
million miles."
A man who was convinced of
individual responsibility of citizen-
ship, Dr. Taylor was a staunch
Democrat, serving as Democratic
chairman of Brown County con-
tinuously after the death of his pre-
decessor, Prof. J. H. Grove, in 1922.
In addition to his county chair-
manship, Dr. Taylor served as vice
president of the Texas Association
of County Democratic Chairmen and
congressional district Democratic
chairman.
He had served as a director of
the Brownwood Chamber of Com-
merce, district director of the Texas
Interscholastic League, member of
the Southern Baptist Education
Commission, vice president of the
Texas Baptist College Administra-
tors Association, member of the
Executive Committee of the Texas
College Foundation, president of the
Brownwood Rotary Club, district
governor of Rotary International,
director of the Texas Good Roads
Association, district member of the
Texas Centennial Campaign Com-
mittee and a member and chair-
man of the State Board of Public
Welfare. He was listed in Who's
Who in America and Why.
Throughout his life, Dr. Taylor
found personal inspiration from his
warm-hearted family and from
"my little blue-eyed Myrtle," often
referring to himself as a "one-job,
one-wife man."
He married Myrtle Evans of Salt
Creek, Brown County, in June of
1907. They had met while students
at Howard Payne. They had two
daughters, Jennie, now Mrs. Brown
Tomme of Fort Worth, and Frances,
now Mrs. Willie Laird of Brown-
wood, and three sons, Henry,
Robert and Edward Taylor, who all
live in Brownwood. He is also sur-
vived by a sister, Mrs. Edwina
Bailey of Bakersfield, Calif., 10
grandchildren and 4 great-grand-
children.THE LINK, JANUARY, 1962
2
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Howard Payne College (Brownwood, Tex.). The Link, Volume 12, Number 2, January 1962, periodical, January 1962; Brownwood, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth744698/m1/2/?rotate=270: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Howard Payne University Library.