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When Texas technological college, now Texas Tech University, was created in 1923, the board selected longtime educator Paul Whitfield Horn as its First President. Horn was born in Boonville, Missouri to George Washington Horn and Mattie Myers. He graduated with a master’s degree in education and began a teaching career. He married Sallie Maud Keith in 1890, and their only child, Ruth, was born two years later. The Horns moved to Texas in 1892, where Paul served as principal of schools at Valleyview for one year, then superintendent of schools at Belcherville for two years. Every few years, he accepted increasingly prestigious positions, eventually serving as president of the Texas State Teachers Association in 1910. In 1922, he was selected as the sixth president of Southwestern University. It was from here that the newly-formed Texas Tech board hired him as their first president.
Horn and his family arrived in Lubbock on December 6, 1923, and quickly got to work. He oversaw all aspects of the building and growth of the college. He was not in favor of Greek fraternities and sororities because he deemed them exclusive, which ran contrary to his vision of an institution where all students regardless of creed or background could fit in. He did support student clubs and athletic programs, especially football, which helped raise the college’s profile. He experienced controversy around academic freedom near the time of the famed scopes monkey trial, as local clergy accused tech professors of teaching evolution. The controversy dragged on, leaving Horn to act as referee. At the age of 64, Horn died on April 11, 1932. In the words of Texas Tech student newspaper The Toreador, “President Horn has finished his work, but his spirit lives on forever!” |
