Willis B. Boyd ~ Mrs. Nan D. Rauchfuss

Willis B. Boyd ~ Mrs. Nan D. Rauchfuss

Putnam County, Tennessee

Willis B. Boyd, now president of Dixie College at Cookeville, one of the flourishing institutions of higher and better learning in Tennessee, Mr. Boyd has been actively identified with educational work since he was seventeen years of age, and has had a career of remarkable success in this field. He began teaching in the Cumberland mountains twenty years ago, and since then has spent a large portion of his time as executive head of the Mount Vale College in Clay county.

Willis B. Boyd was born in Bledsoe county, Tennessee, February 1, 1876, a son of Benjamin F. and Margaret (Howard) Boyd. The paternal grandparents were William J. and Anna (Turner) Boyd, both of whom were natives of Virginia, and came into Tennessee in the early part of the nineteenth century, settling in Bledsoe county, where they spent the remainder of their lives as substantial and respected citizens. The paternal grandfather during the war was a Confederate sympathizer. The maternal grandfather was William Buckner Howard, the name of his wife being Cooper. He was born in North Carolina and was also an early settler of Tennessee and a farmer in Bledsoe county during the balance of his life. Both parents of Professor Boyd were natives of Bledsoe county, the father born in 1851 and the mother in 1856. The father passed away in 1905 and the mother in 1892. They represented the cultured citizenship of old Tennessee, and both of them received their education at Sequatchee College, the old institution which was so prominent before and for a short time after the Civil war, but which no longer exists. The father was a builder and contractor by trade, and all his possessions were the result of a career of self effort. He and his wife had six children, Willis B. Boyd being the oldest, and the others named as follows: Brown W. Boyd, a bookkeeper in Pipeville, Tennessee; Walter S. Boyd, a traveling salesman in Oklahoma; Edwin Y. Boyd, a farmer and merchant in Oklahoma; Leslie R. Boyd, in the clerical department of the Southern Express Company at Chattanooga; Della J. Boyd, the wife of Will Carey, at Olustee, Oklahoma. The father, though a man of modest means, thoroughly believed in education and managed to send all six of his children through college. He was a member of the Christian church, and in politics a Democrat. In his community he served on educational boards and at one time was a trustee of Burritt College at Spencer.

Professor Boyd attained his early education inn the public schools, and subsequently entering Burritt College a Spencer was graduated in 1900. During the year 1908 he was a student in the University of Chicago. His career as teacher began in 1896 at Griffith school house in the mountains of Cumberland, where he taught for three years. He subsequently taught for two years at High View, and then went to Celina in Clay county, where he founded the Mount Vale College. He remained president of that college for eight years, and conducted an institution which was noted over a large section of country for its excellent instruction and the fine moral influences which environed the students. He built u his enrollment to two hundred students. In 1909 Mr. Boyd came to Cookeville to become president of the Dixie College, and during the first year the enrollment reached two hundred and twenty five students. He has a faculty of eight teachers, and the best facilities for learning and for moral progress are offered at this well known Tennessee College.

Professor Boyd on April 29, 1911, married Mrs. Nan D. Rauchfuss, a daughter of Charles Ford, a native of Tennessee, and a merchant and for some years a trustee of Putnam county. Mr. Boyd and wife are members of the Christian church and in politics he is a Democrat. During 1906 and 1907 he was elected and served as county superintendent of schools in Clay county. He has membership in the Tennessee State Teachers Association, being now a member of its executive committee and is also a member of the Middle Tennessee Teachers Association. He has done considerable lecture work for his church and in behalf of Sunday school organizations.

Source: A history of Tennessee and Tennesseans : the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities; by Will T. Hale; Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1913.

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