Remembering Dr. F.W. Maddox: A Legacy of Faith, Leadership, and Service

Dr. Don Williams: Dr.
Don Williams,
I'm the class of 62,
a very young man.
I would ask you to pray with me,
please.
Our Father, this morning,
we spend time remembering.
We are remembering,
Father,
your hand in the development of this university,
the guidance that was provided by a man you appointed in Dr.
Maddox,
And we have seen through the years your hand in our staff,
in our faculty,
in our administrators,
those who come to serve to fulfill the dream that Dr.
Maddox began,
a dream which is focused on you,
our Father.
Father, we remind ourselves of those who challenged us,
of those who led us to your path,
and Father we are also most mindful this morning
of our friends that we met here
who have walked with us
who have encouraged us
who have strengthened us throughout our lives
Father it is a great blessing
to have been walking with you
during our time here
we thank you Father for your example of love
and we pray in our Savior's name
Amen
Bob Cash: Good morning.
I'm Bob Cash from the class of '74,
and it's my distinct privilege this morning to introduce
one of LCU's favorite sons,
Mr.
Jim Ravanelli.
Now, in many ways, Jim is like you and me.
Everyone in this room,
I'm sure,
has fought for and has preserved their spot in that long
line of students and faculty and staff and administrators and university supporters that
stretches from this point all the way back to the late 1950s.
The thing that distinguishes Jim is he is in the vanguard of that line.
He's in the front row.
We've all got our LCU stories.
I met Jim for the first time last spring,
drove down to Houston,
and we had lunch together,
and we shared our LCU stories.
And I must tell you, Jim's are much better than mine.
He was there at the beginning.
He worked with Dr.
Maddox. He studied under Dr.
Maddox. He worked alongside Dr.
Maddox. All the folks that started this place,
he was there.
So his words carry extra weight,
I think. So when you listen to him, just remember what he's been through and the evolution he's seen on this campus.
actually graduated high school in Albuquerque in 1958,
came straight here.
He was here in the fall of 1958,
got a two-year degree,
which was all you could do at that point in time.
Went to Abilene Christian,
finished up his degree in 1963,
and that fall he was right back on campus.
Dr.
Maddox had talked to him about coming back in some form or fashion
when he handed him his diploma, I believe.
And so Jim spent the next six years from 1963 to 1969 as Director of Recruiting and Admissions.
Now just a point of privilege here before I get to the rest of his resume.
I've read his resume.
It's impressive.
However,
from 19,
there's an omission here.
I'm sure it's just a clerical error.
But Jim,
in that period of time,
was the founding sponsor of Sub-T16.
Now he -- I had to point out to Jim that that is the first bullet on my resume.
But he missed that.
That said,
he spent the next year, after 1969,
went to Amarillo for a job there,
came back,
a year later and was on campus again as director of development for the university,
a very important
role at any point in time, but during the formative years of the university,
incredibly important.
Following that,
he spent 10 years with the College of the Southwest in Hobbs.
After that,
he went back to Abilene Christian in a variety of development-related jobs and formed his own
company Jim Ravinelli and Associates in 1990.
He lives with his wife now in Katy,
Texas.
Would you join me in welcoming him home?
Jim Ravanelli: Well,
welcome.
I think I can't see anybody out there.
Thank you,
Bob.
I appreciate things he said.
I do have to clear up one thing.
Bob, come out here just a minute.
Come on, hurry up.
I know you're old, but come on.
See,
he didn't want, he didn't want, okay,
okay,
hide,
go ahead and hide.
There is a reason that I don't have that I was the founding sponsor for Sub-T16.
Because I thought,
well,
if I say that,
I'm going to have to say that I was never a member of Sub-T16.
The two years that I was here,
I was with Koinonia.
Bob,
you asked for it.
Subtee didn't get a clap,
and now Koinonia got one.
And to top it all,
this morning,
I had gotten ready.
I was in the hotel getting ready to study my talk for this morning.
And Bob walked up.
And he and his wife were staying there.
And so what did he do?
He sat down.
And I was going to go over my notes.
He sat down and he just started talking about sub-T.
Sub-T.
And love a Christian too.
I didn't have a chance to go over my notes.
So if this is a total flop,
it's Bob's fault.
I'll tell you.
F.W.
Maddox was my hero and is still my hero.
In 1960,
Dr.
Maxwell Maltz wrote a book called Psycho-Cybernetics.
I started working with a motivation company after recruiting for Love of Christian,
and we had Dr.
Maltz come at a convention that we had.
And this was a convention of people who thought they were motivators
and had gathered together.
Dr.
Maltz had written a book called Psycho-Cybernetics
that was a worldwide bestseller.
And he got up to speak to us,
And this is what he said.
It is impossible to motivate anybody to do anything.
All you can do is motivate yourself.
And perhaps someone will see something in you that they like and try to imitate you.
Dr.
Maddox was the example of what Maltz was talking about.
Dr.
Maddox,
through, I believe,
the wishes of God,
His Son, and the Holy Spirit,
was directed to come to Lubbock,
Texas to be the president of a founding school that nobody ever heard of or would.
He was the perfect man to lead the faculty,
the staff, and the students in the shadows of Texas Tech.
But you know what?
He didn't act like a leader or an important man.
Dr.
Maddox was a motivator.
Now I want to repeat what Dr.
Spokemaltz said.
It is impossible to motivate anyone to do anything.
All you can do is motivate yourself
and perhaps someone will see something in you that they like
and try to imitate you.
Dr.
Maddox was a motivator.
you know
he
he drew the best out of people
I don't know what he had
but there was an awe around him
when you would talk to him
and yourself you would feel comfortable
he led by example
he was kind
He was humble.
But he had strong convictions.
Strong convictions.
And he had a vision for this college.
He truly loved the faculty,
the staff,
and the students he worked with every day.
he wanted the best for them
and for you
I understand that we have
not only students
that love a Christian right now
but we have some students here
that are thinking about coming here
students that
might be looking at
you who are now students
Maybe they'll see something in you in the short time that they're on campus and want to follow you to this great school.
It was interesting.
Dr.
Maddox didn't care who you were.
He didn't care anything about your nationality.
He would make you comfortable,
and he was easy to talk with.
It didn't matter if you were rich or poor or famous or a nobody.
He was always there for you and wanted to know who you were
and what you were doing and things like that.
I stepped on this campus in 1958.
That's a long time ago.
But that was the beginning of a great journey for me.
And I am glad to see so many students now enjoying this great institution.
The great privilege that I had was that I was in the second class.
that attended the school.
And so I knew the first class
and I knew the teachers of that class.
And they were basically all here
when I arrived.
And let me tell you,
they were truly pioneers
as the school song says.
They really,
really were.
In that second year that I attended,
we had the administration building and 14 army buildings,
and that made up the campus.
Wow.
And you walk on the campus today,
and it's a beautiful,
beautiful campus.
It took a lot of hard work on a lot of people's part,
but it's been worth it.
I haven't been back on campus for some time,
but I tell you what,
I was joyed to get to
have a view of the campus yesterday.
I really think that I don't know a lot about Dr.
Maddox in the first few years because
that was a tough time for Dr.
Maddox
and love a Christian.
Can you imagine
trying to start a college
when you had other Christian colleges
of our faith
not too far from here?
You had a wonderful
state-supported university
and you announced that you're going to
begin a college out here in a cotton patch.
well
he did it
but the first year
he wasn't on campus a lot
he was out
talking to civic leaders
he was making speeches to
civic clubs
he was talking to churches
he was everywhere in the area
trying to drum up
interest in this new
college.
It was interesting those first few years.
I don't know how long that would spread,
maybe five,
six,
ten years.
But when we would have a cold spell and the pipes would freeze,
Dr.
Maddox was out
there in his overalls with his plumbing equipment fixing the pipes.
Yeah, he was right along with
the professionals who were working on the school trying to get the pipes fixed,
but you couldn't
tell him from anybody else.
And I liked him when he was driving that little Ford tractor.
He'd get on that tractor and he'd level off the snow off of the parking lots.
He would do whatever.
In fact, I think he always prayed a lot for snow so he could drive that tractor.
And he was just busy doing what he could to keep the patches on this school the first few years.
I have to confess,
I don't remember anything he ever said in chapel.
Well,
that's not true.
I do remember one thing, but I'm not going to talk about that.
But I do remember the way he,
and occasionally the way we had chapel,
Usually,
Dr.
Jack Bates, the dean, would make the closing announcements and dismisses.
And occasionally,
quite a bit of time,
Dr.
Maddox would have that role.
And he always,
and if there are any X's in the audience, you know what I'm going to say.
He always closed chapel by saying,
let's go to our work.
You're dismissed.
Sign that student up real quick.
But it was not until I really started preparing this presentation
that I really thought about that.
I always thought he was talking to the students.
but you notice he said
let's go to our work
and he was talking to the faculty
and the staff and himself
along with the students
because we all had work to do on that campus
at that time.
I love the way
he closed out those chapel talks.
Well, I think you get the idea.
Dr.
Maddox was a motivator,
and he led by example.
He did his best,
and he expected you to do your best.
It seems like everyone's got a Dr.
Maddox story.
So I thought that I had to tell at least one of mine,
Dr.
Maddox stories.
My wife and I have been married 64 years.
Dr.
Maddox was a good marriage counselor.
Did any of you know that?
He was.
I think he kind of did it on the side.
I mean, you didn't have to pay him.
That was the good thing about it.
But he always had advice for you if you were married.
And when we came here and had our young family,
I was with him one day in his office.
Now,
Dr.
Maddox had an open-door policy,
but that didn't mean that you come in and just chit-chat.
It was an open-door policy,
but you came in and you talked business.
I was in his office one day,
and he and I were,
I don't remember the conversation,
And Reba Keener,
his secretary,
walked in with a stack of envelopes,
put them on his desk,
and he kind of paused in our conversation and reached over and took that stack and looked at them.
Picked out one,
looked at the rest of them,
put them aside,
got his letter opener,
and opened that particular envelope.
He said, Jim,
let me give you a lesson in marriage.
Well, that wasn't what we were talking about, but okay.
He said,
see this?
He opened it up and he said, you see this letter?
It's addressed to Mildred.
Now, Mildred was his wife.
Okay?
He said, this is addressed to Mildred.
And it's from the Lena Stevens dress shop.
He said,
Lena Stevens has the finest dress shop in Lubbock.
Then he pulled out a credit card.
And he said, they've sent her a credit card.
and then he reached over
picked up his scissors
held it up and went
cut right through that credit card
took the credit card and that letter
and put them in his basket
under his desk
he said where were we
what were we talking about
so that's my story
and I'm sticking with it
and by the way
the men love that story
women don't like it too well
but you are the first audience
that I've ever told that story to
I've told it to a few individuals
but so you can spread that
word all you want to
It's the gospel, and have them call me if they don't believe it.
Well, they've given me such a short timeline on this talk
that I'm going to have to wrap it up.
I just want you to know that I'm very proud.
alumnus of this school had never dreamed that it would be what it is today.
But I'm so proud of the faculty and the staff that are here today to lead you as students.
And I do hope that they are truly motivators because you're watching them.
And get acquainted with them,
not just in the classroom.
I debated whether to say this,
but I'm going to say it.
you know what?
The Lord doesn't care what your grade point average is.
That was the Bible faculty clapping.
It's humorous, but that's the truth.
But I'm telling you,
what his kid does care about,
what he does care about is your actions here on campus
and your actions after you leave this campus.
That's what he really cares about.
Now,
don't get me wrong.
He expects you to do the best you can while you're on this campus.
But also,
he expects you to be helping just like Dr.
Maddox did.
Be an example to one another.
Thank you for letting me visit with you today about my hero.
Thank you.
Dr. David Fraze: Now here in just a second, he's going to help us with the school songs.
Sit over there with this other subbers.
Now,
it's an all-in day.
Don't panic.
We have plenty of time, and the teachers,
since they don't care about GPAs anymore,
it'll be fine.
Some announcements.
Some announcements.
We're going to take three sets of pictures for the alumni and also existing and ex-subbers.
So,
be listening to Lisa about 10 minutes after this.
If you're our guest and you're an alumni group,
which we're about to applaud you, there's a lot of free stuff out there.
That's just for y'all.
Vultures,
stay away just for y'all. Grab everything.
Go through the mall areas, see the LCU timeline.
There's going to be Coke and candy out there as well at 1230 in the Ling Science Building,
which is directly behind.
And to my right, your left,
that's where we're going to have the alumni dinner.
Now,
Jim,
I got some points of contention.
You are more sub T than you know.
I walked in here and he said, you're in charge of chapel.
And I said, yes, I am.
Then I'm going late and you're in trouble.
That's what he said.
That's one.
Two, he sat up here and he just said, I'm going to say it anyway.
And you said,
GPA doesn't count.
And the story he doesn't want to tell.
He does remember one thing that F.W.
Maddox said,
when you did a chapel and it was Liberace,
don't know it, Google it.
And F.W.
Maddox had a bunch of donors and friends of the university in the back and F.W. Maddox walked up
and what did he say?
Get your subber out. What did he say?
Jim Ravanelli: Well,
he apologized to the guest
for this program we had that day in chapel.
Dr. David Fraze: Does it feel good to just kind of...
Now,
see, I'm the existing Sub-T sponsor,
so now we've got generations.
I never get in trouble, by the way.
I'm perfect.
Jim Ravanelli: The only reason I wanted to be a Sub-T sponsor
is because they had a lot more fun than the rest of those guys.
Dr. David Fraze: It feels it feels good to get it out. Here's what I'd like for all of us to first of all alumni.
Would you stand please?
Existing alumni up here in the front if you can
Let's give them a round of applause
Now let's all stand together,
please
You're gonna say on the screen the lyrics to our school song if you're new we do this now get your shaps up
Everybody get your shaps up
Do you see that? We're doing this?
Alright.
Hail to our own love,
big Christian,
modern pioneers.
May his blessing rest upon you all,
ways through the years.
Ties of friendship,
love unbounded, colors white and blue.
Oh,
beloved,
love it, Christian,
we'll be true to you.
Hail to thee our alma mater,
loving Christian reigns.
Born to give the light of knowledge set on rolling plains.
Learning character,
citizenship with Christianity
Oh,
beloved Lubbock Christian,
we'll remember thee
Go Shaps, you are dismissed
Thank you.