|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Alum Has Given a Lifetime of Service to Alma Mater
By Todd Copeland
 Vernon
Garrett’s connection with Baylor literally began the day he was born.
That was in 1925, when his father was a Baylor student studying to
become a preacher and the family lived on Wood Avenue just south of
campus.
That Baylor connection has now extended into its ninth decade, as
Garrett remains a diehard Baylor supporter who can look back on many
years of significant service to his alma mater and the Baylor Alumni
Association (BAA).
Most recently, Vernon and his wife, Yvonne, gave $1,000 toward the
endowment of the Heritage Club, a program for alumni who graduated from
Baylor fifty years ago or more. Such endowment gifts form a critical
component of the Sesquicentennial Campaign, which is designed to
establish a base of ongoing support for the alumni association’s
programs in celebration of the BAA’s sesquicentennial anniversary this
year.
“It’s very important to financially support the alumni association,”
Garrett said. “We’ve been lucky to be able to do that, as well as
supporting Truett Seminary.”
When it came time for Garrett to choose a college, Baylor was an easy
pick, he said. And it was where he would meet someone who became a
lifelong friend.
“Bill Logue and I met when I first came to Baylor in 1941, and he
became my best friend and gave me a place to live when I needed it,”
Garrett said of the late Judge Logue ’47, JD ’49, who established
himself as the longest-serving state judge in Texas history before his
retirement in 1999. “Later, for years, we went to all the football
games together.” Indeed, many years later the two steadfast friends
would serve as the co-directors of the Heritage Club in the 1990s.
Like many men his age, Garrett had his education interrupted by
military service during World War II, leaving Baylor in 1943 to serve
as a Navy officer and pilot. After the war, he married Yvonne Cates
Garrett in 1946. The moved to Waco, where Vernon completed a degree in
accounting from Baylor in 1947 and Yvonne taught in the
radio-journalism department.
After graduation, Garrett left Waco, but his alma mater was never far
from his thoughts and eventually became a place he would return to in
various leadership positions. He was hired straight out of college by
Arthur Andersen, considered the best accounting firm in the world at
the time. Based in Houston, he served clients in construction,
manufacturing, oil and gas, and small business industries and retired
as a partner almost forty years later, in 1983.
His professional career, however, was far from over. Having served
since 1965 on the Board of Trustees for Memorial Healthcare System in
Houston (now Memorial Hermann), Garrett was asked to serve the
institution as interim president in 1984. His primary charge was to
recruit the next permanent president. Such a task suited his talents;
he had directed Arthur Andersen’s personnel recruiting program from
1979 to 1981 and had served as the chair of the pastor search committee
at South Main Baptist Church in 1972.
It didn’t take him long to get the job done at Memorial. “They told me
it would take three years to recruit a new CEO, but it only took me
eight months,” said Garrett, who stayed on as senior vice president
until 1990 to guide foundation and for-profit activities.
Garrett’s philanthropy and guidance, of course, also extended to
Baylor, where he served on the Board of Trustees from 1975 to 1983 and
as president of the BAA in 1979. His contributions were recognized in
1994 when he was given the W. R. White Meritorious Service Award by the
BAA. And in 2003, his and Yvonne’s families were honored with the First
Families of Baylor Award, which recognizes a multigenerational alumni
family. Of the four generations of fifty-three Baylor alumni belonging
to the Cates-Garrett families, eleven were Vernon and Yvonne’s children
and grandchildren.
“We deeply love Baylor,” Garrett said of himself and his wife. “And we
believe in the Baylor Alumni Association’s mission to support Baylor.
The alumni association’s status as an independent organization is good,
and it’s doing a very good job now—one that we should all support.”
|
|
|
|
|
.jpg)
