TONY GELDMACHER
Staff Writer
After 34 years, Bill Henegar will step down as Associate Vice President for Public Affairs at Pepperdine on Friday. Better known as the editor for the publication, Pepperdine People, as well as authoring the annual report, Henegar has been serving Pepperdine through the terms of four presidents and the university’s move from Los Angeles to Malibu. He said he feels now is the ideal time to bid farewell to the place he has called home for nearly half his life.
“I feel comfortable making this decision,” Henegar said.
An alumnus of Long Beach State University, Henegar came in 1971 from an Illinois-based advertising firm known as Advertising Art, where he was vice president. Henegar began at Pepperdine’s West L.A. campus under President William Banowsky back when Pepperdine University was called Pepperdine College. That year as director of publications, Henegar engineered Pepperdine’s very first view book, featuring the appeals of the school, in hope of expanding the institution’s recognition.
When Pepperdine moved to Malibu the following year, Henegar, though an integral part of the shift, elected to stay in West L.A. for another 10 years. In 1982, when Henegar left his home in Cerritos for Thousand Oaks, he came to Pepperdine’s main campus with the intent of making the newly accredited university even more appealing while staying true to its roots.
Henegar said the changes in Pepperdine go without saying, “People didn’t know who we are. They do now.”
Though his responsibilities have always been in the creative area, Henegar said he truly values the Pepperdine tradition. A great advocate of Founder’s Day, he said he likes to think of himself as a “Keeper of the Flame.” With such admiration for the legacy of the university, on Pepperdine’s 50th anniversary, the self-proclaimed Prometheus, a Greek legend who suffered for stealing the fire from mount Olympus to give it to human kind, took part in the production of “Crest of a Golden Wave,” a scrapbook of the institution’s history. His publications would not end there as he and Director of Church Relations Jerry Rushford, wrote “Forever Young,” a tribute to Pepperdine’s third president, M. Norvel Young and his wife, Helen.
As associate vice president for public affairs, Henegar heads up the offices of Public Relations and News, Creative Services, University Design and University Marketing. Overseeing these four departments, Henegar believes he has established the “Pepperdine Image,” which he described as, “dignified and exciting, innovative and traditional, a happy medium.” He said his goal was to set a balanced style.
In his more than three-decade tenure at Pepperdine, Henegar has a laundry list of memorable moments, but he said his proudest is when Hero’s Garden was erected in memory of those lost during the tragedies of Sept 11.
“To see it start off from an idea, to being done was really something,” Henegar said.
Henegar said he loves this campus almost unconditionally but is aware that to many it is not a utopia. He said he recognizes the presence of human error but he also said, “As human institutions go, this is a great one.”
President Andrew K. Benton shows the same, if not more, gratitude for Henegar’s services. In a newsletter that Benton sent to faculty and staff at Pepperdine last week he wrote, “Thank you, Bill, for the faithful fulfillment of your creative at this special place. God has blessed us with your friendship and your ministry, and we will miss you.”
Henegar also said he has one hope for every student and every faculty member. That “they would come to know the Pepperdine that I know, that they would get a glimpse of the sacrifice that has gone into their education,” he said in reference to the donors such as Frances Smothers, George Elkins and Dorothy Stotsenberg.
Henegar leaves this place of higher learning with one nugget of advice. “Never forget who really built this campus, the answer is God,” he said.
09-29-2005
