During the summer ACU lost the father of its College of Business Administration.
Dr. A. Overton Faubus, who served as chair of the department of business and helped lead it to become its own college, died Aug. 1 in Abilene – he was 96. Faubus is credited with helping COBA achieve national prominence as a business school.
Faubus was born July 3, 1914, in Fort Worth, but grew up in Waco. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Texas A&M University in 1939 and a Master of Business Administration in 1955. He earned a Ph.D. in accounting from the University of Arkansas in 1969.
Faubus began teaching at ACU in 1952 as an assistant professor and became chair of the department in 1969. He retired in 1985 to become professor emeritus of accounting.
Throughout his career and after his retirement, Faubus was honored for his service to ACU. He was named Outstanding Alumni of the Year in 1972 and was awarded the Faculty and Staff Award in 1992. Faubus Fountain Lake on the ACU campus was named in his honor in 2009.
He was married and widowed twice. He married his first wife Sybil Cochran in 1939, and the couple had two children, Ann Griggs and Dr. Don Faubus. The couple was married 51 years until her death in 1990. Faubus and his second wife Dee Yancy married in 1991, and remained together until her death in January 2010.
His daughter Ann Griggs remembers her father as a patient man who had an uncanny ability to balance work and family life.
“I remember patience, much patience,” Griggs said. “Daddy came to ACC in the 1950’s and he worked hard. At one time he was teaching five different preparations. He was very busy, but never pushed my brother and me aside. My mother did not drive so he took us to everything. He was phenomenal.”
She said her father was an outstanding educator and preacher, but his faith is what impressed her the most.
“He had such a strong faith in God, and he was a strong member of the Church of Christ,” Griggs said. “That was very important to him. Everywhere we lived he was a minister or an elder.”
Griggs said her father’s mind was sharp until his last days, but even in his last moments a commitment to a faith that carried him through life was shining brightly.
“Communion was the last thing to touch his lips, it was very important to him and those who were there got to share it to him,” she said. “What else could I ask for, I’ve been so blessed.”
Griggs said her father’s caregiver would often hear him reciting Bible verses through a monitor, and after his death Griggs and her brother found thousands of pages of handwritten sermon notes. Griggs said the greatest advice her dad ever gave her was simple.
“Be a Christian in all that you do. He was a Christian Business man and that’s what he taught.”
Dr. Rick Lytle, dean of the College of Business Administration, released a statement describing the impact Faubus had on ACU.
“All of his students looked up to him. He spoke as easily to them about life and living as he did about accounting,” Lytle said. “He had this humble, straightforward, simple approach to life, and was always able to cut to the heart of what was most important. He had a tremendous faith in God and in the ability of this institution to reach higher than we thought we could reach. We are losing a legend, a giant of a man on whose shoulders we stand.”
