Charles Haynes Hale, teacher and college administrator, was born on November 14, 1869, near Highland, Pike County, Arkansas, the oldest of five children of James Thomas and Eliza (Watson) Hale. He moved with his family to Bell County, Texas, in 1883, then in 1885 to Flatwoods (now Huckabay) in Erath County. There he received his early education and earned a teacher's certificate. In 1889, after teaching in country schools for about two years, he entered Add-Ran-Jarvis College (later Thorp Spring Christian College) in Thorp Spring (Hood County), where he attended for two terms. On June 4, 1891, he married Dora Copeland, and they had five children; Dora died on November 10, 1917.
In 1900 Hale attended a pharmaceutical school in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and opened a drugstore in Huckabay. In 1902, concerned about the lack of education beyond the eighth grade for the youth in his home county, he opened Huckabay Academy, a combination high school and prep school. In five years the institution grew to an enrollment of over 100 students. Hale ran the academy until 1914, when he sold it to R. C. Bowers and accepted a teaching position in the mathematics department at Abilene Christian College (now Abilene Christian University). A year later he took a similar faculty position at John Tarleton College (now Tarleton State University) in Stephenville. In 1920 he was chosen as copresident of Thorp Spring Christian College in Hood County. He became superintendent of schools at Bellevue in Clay County two years later and subsequently accepted a similar position at Ralls in Crosby County. In 1925 Hale returned to Tarleton, where he remained in the mathematics and education departments until his retirement in 1945. During his tenure he helped change Tarleton into a state college. Through the years Hale earned B.S., B.A., and M.A. degrees. Texas Christian University conferred an honorary doctor of laws degree on him in 1952. He died on February 3, 1969, and was buried in Huckabay.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Erath County Historical Commission, History of Erath County...1878- 1980 (Dublin, Texas, 1980). Stephenville Empire-Tribune, February 7, 1969.
H. Allen Anderson
Submitted by James T. Sears
Newspaper Article about ceremony honoring Dr. Hale.
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