former - Schreiner University

Volunteer Spotlight
Growing up
on Campus
By LOuISe KOhL Leahy
Cathy Carden Henry has ties to
Schreiner that go back nearly to
her birth. Adopted by Robert and
Mary Carden, she moved into Hoon
Hall when she was 14 days old, the
building where she is now a volunteer
for Schreiner’s Office of Advancement
& Public Affairs.
“My parents came to Schreiner in
1940 sight unseen,” Henry said. “All
the job correspondence was done by
mail. At that time, Kerrville had a
reputation for being a good place for
people with lung problems—which
my dad had.”
The Lone Star State was a
considerable shock for the couple,
as they hailed from Kentucky.
“It must have been a dry year,”
Henry said. “My mother told me that
during the trip she kept asking my
dad, ‘How can people make a living in
this place?’ and crying. When she saw
her first rattlesnake, she was ready to
head right back to Kentucky.”
However, they stayed on, to
Schreiner’s great benefit. Robert
Carden, taught zoology and biology
here for 32 years, known to students
in the early days as “Bicycle Bob.” That
was in the war years, when people
needed to conserve gasoline. His
daughter has an almost encyclopedic
knowledge of Schreiner history during
that time.
Henry said that her parents were
in their late 30s when they started
the adoption process, at a time when
40 was the cutoff age for adopting
parents.
“My mother told me that Mrs. Scott
Schreiner wrote the adoption agency
a letter that said, ‘Give this couple a
child.’ She always said that without
Mrs. Schreiner, they would never have
been able to adopt me.”
The boys in Hoon chipped in and
bought a $25 U.S. Savings Bond for
the infant Carden.
“I cashed it in when I bought my
first car,” she said. “I thought the boys
would approve of that.”
Growing up on campus, Henry
remembers faculty, staff and students
as just neighbors.
“Living here was a lot like living on
a military base,” she said. “We’d wake
up and go to bed to bugles blowing.
Sunday afternoons in the spring, we
all came out for the parades on the
parade grounds. It’s so strange. Now I
walk around campus and the buildings
are named after our old neighbors.”
As a teenager, she was an object of
envy to her classmates at Tivy High
School. Apparently, there was an
unwritten law at that time that the
young ladies could date either Tivy
boys or Schreiner boys. Henry was an
exception since she lived at Schreiner
and attended Tivy.
“My town friends were jealous that I
had 300 boys for neighbors,” she said,
laughing.
Henry went on to marry a Schreiner
boy, Roy Henry ’64. Her first
classroom experience at Schreiner was
a typing class she took when she was
in the 7th grade. She eventually went
on to do her freshman year of college
and a summer session here—more than
30 college hours altogether. Although
she also attended The University of
Texas and Texas Tech, “my loyalties
are really to Schreiner,” she said. She
graduated from Texas Tech with a B.A.
in history and government.
Henry spent most of her career
working for King Ranch, starting
as the personal secretary of John
Armstrong, a King Ranch family
member and company executive—and
the nephew of Mrs. Scott Schreiner.
During the 31 years she worked there,
she worked in the records department
and was in charge of the visitor
management department. The visitor
wrangling job came, she said, because
“I was familiar with the whole kit
and caboodle; I knew a little about
everything on the ranch.”
After retiring, it was barely a month
before she returned to Kerrville. Her
daughter and her family were here
and she had kept up with friends in
the area.
“A few months later I made my way
to Schreiner, stuck my nose into what
used to be the president’s house, which
is called Alumni House now,” Henry
said. “It had a sign on the door that
said ‘In Process of Moving.’ So I waited
and checked out the Advancement
folks in Hoon and decided I would
like to work for them.”
One visible and welcome result of
her volunteer work was the idea for
a reception during Recall for people
who had grown up on the campus—
the children of former Schreiner
faculty and staff. That event is two
years old now, and draws a large and
lively crowd. She also searches records
for former students and updates the
department’s database.
“I feel like I owe Schreiner so
much,” Henry said. “My dad was so
happy here and my mother could spot
a homesick student just like that and
ask them in where they could use our
phone to call home in privacy. So
many of us who grew up on campus
say it was an idyllic experience. It was
safe, the faculty and families were
friends—it was like a 1950s sitcom.”
oncampus
www.schreiner.edu Summer 2012 7