Brownwood News – Jarod Root of Flower Mound has been named Howard Payne University’s Homecoming 2019 Outstanding Young Graduate. He is among nine who will be honored during this year’s festivities, to be held November 1-2. Additional honorees are listed at www.hputx.edu/homecoming and will be highlighted in the weeks to come.
Root and the other honorees will be recognized during the Alumni and Sports Hall of Fame Banquet at 5:45 p.m. on Friday, November 1, in the Mabee University Center’s Beadel Dining Hall. The honorees will also be featured in the Homecoming Parade on Saturday, November 2, 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.
Root graduated from HPU in 2003, having earned a degree in exercise and sport science with a specialization in athletic training. He was the student body vice president and was a student athletic trainer. He was also a member of Zeta Chi.
Root is actively involved in the HPU Alumni Association Board of Directors, currently serving as vice president. He is very supportive of many campus initiatives.
In 2014, Root graduated from The University of Texas at Arlington with a degree in nursing. He is currently enrolled at Texas Woman’s University where he is working on his master’s degree in nursing practice.
Root owns and operates Whitecoat Enterprises, through which he assists in the perioperative care of patients and performs duties as assigned from the primary operating surgeon.
He and his wife, Kara, have two sons, Jack and Tucker. Root also raises and sells grass-fed beef and local honey.
“HPU gave me the base knowledge and skills to go out and be successful in the world,” he said. “If it wasn’t for the relationships that I made at HPU, along with the values I was taught growing up in Lindsay, Texas, I feel that I would have struggled to get where I am today. Professors like Scott Owen, Dr. Ed Roth and Curly Cox challenged me academically and always to ‘keep it professional.’”
