BrownwoodNews – Karen Coppock Dodds of Brownwood has been named Howard Payne University’s Homecoming 2018 Coming Home Queen.

 

Dodds is among eight who will be honored during HPU’s Homecoming 2018 festivities, November 2-3. Additional honorees are listed at www.hputx.edu/homecoming.

Dodds and the other honorees will be recognized during the Alumni & Sports Hall of Fame Banquet on Friday, November 2, beginning at 5:45 p.m. The honorees will also be featured in the Homecoming Parade on Saturday, November 3, beginning at 10 a.m. Ticket information for the banquet and a full schedule of the weekend’s events are available online at www.hputx.edu/homecoming.

Dodds graduated from HPU in 1964 with a degree in elementary education and physical education. During her time at HPU, she was a member of several groups including the Jacket Co-Eds, Phi Epsilon Mu, Sigma Alpha Sigma, the Association of Women Students, the Women’s Board of Affairs and more. She also served as a cheerleader and was on the Homecoming Court and the Football Sweetheart Court. She was especially impacted by her time serving as a student assistant to Martha St. Clair, then director of student activities.

Upon graduating from HPU, Dodds taught as a classroom teacher for 28 years, including 25 in Brownwood Independent School District. She is an active member of First United Methodist Church of Brownwood, serving in various areas of ministry. She additionally serves as a volunteer and board member for Brownwood Meals on Wheels, as a volunteer and former member of the Good Samaritan Ministries board and as a volunteer for the Food for Thought program. She has been a member of the HPU President’s Development Council, the HPU Woman’s Club, Friends of the Rotary and the Brown County Retired Teachers group. She is president of the Junior 20th Century Book Club.

“Howard Payne provided a strong faith-filled curriculum and professors and staff who were accessible and genuinely interested in their students,” she said. “I had the opportunity to learn alongside others with strong Christian beliefs and that certainly shaped the direction I would take after I left HPU.”

She and her husband, Johnny Dodds, a 1962 HPU graduate, have two children and five grandchildren.