ROBERT L. HOWARD
Director Emeritus
Wolcott, Colorado and Wichita, Kansas
Robert L. Howard
Robert L. Howard was an active Director of the Presbyterian Lay Committee from 1990 through 2010, serving four years as vice-chairman and five years as chairman of the board. Active in the renewal movements, he fervently hoped the Presbyterian Church (USA) would return to its theological moorings. But by 2010, when he became director emeritus, he had concluded: “The PCUSA has failed to adequately respond to the crises of culture, and faithful people of God must now do so by transcending denominational labels.”
In the mid-90s, when Robert Howard was in Dallas for a meeting of renewal leaders in the PCUSA, the Dallas Morning News reported that a Texas court had ordered the Diocese of Dallas to pay $119 million to two men who were molested as children by a parish priest. Commenting to his breakfast companions on the implications of the lead story, he noted: “This is exactly the kind of liability we are asking for if the PCUSA approves Amendment A.” Later, he wrote a legal analysis of Amendment A and the importance of enforced constitutional standards, which was published in The Presbyterian Layman and reprinted in a Catholic weekly. Unfortunately, his legal predictions were accurate, as PCUSA churches and presbyteries have subsequently incurred liability for sexual misconduct in the absence of strict enforcement of constitutional standards.
Howard has been a Presbyterian elder since 1959. He has been a Sunday school teacher, trustee, chairman of numerous committees and ardent spokesman for historic evangelical faith at Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas.
“I don’t know of anyone who has fulfilled his ordination vows more fully than Bob Howard,” says Bob Henley, former pastor of the 2,000 member Eastminster Church, a congregation that has grown more than tenfold in the 40-plus years Bob, Joanne and their children have been members. “From the outside, you see a distinguished trial lawyer, a senior partner in the largest law firm in the state of Kansas. On the inside is a person who has a warm heart, who loves Christ, who loves the Presbyterian Church,” Henley adds. “At Eastminster, Bob and his wife Joanne both are elders. They have been leaders in the church’s mission and adult education programs.”
On five occasions, totaling 20 years, Joanne taught a four-year through-the-Bible study that has been attended by hundreds of women in Wichita. Joanne was a director of Presbyterians for Renewal and on the steering committee of the Network of Presbyterian Women in Leadership. Bob and Joanne are inseparable. They are the parents of four daughters and one son, all of whom established strong Christian homes. They have 21 grandchildren.
At Emporia (Kansas) State University, Howard was on the debate team that advanced to national collegiate finals. Through debating, he met Joanne Elaine Parker, a member of the debate team at Nebraska Wesleyan. They would marry just after his graduation from ESU. He earned his B.A. degree from ESU in three and one-half years, and was one of two Kansas candidates for a Rhodes scholarship. During four years in the Navy, he completed Officer Candidates School and Navy Postgraduate School, and was assigned to Naval intelligence, investigating security risks.
Returning to law school at the University of Kansas with the G.I. Bill, a scholarship, a stipend for teaching Western Civilization to undergraduates, some law clerking, and income from rooms that he sublet to students, Howard managed to earn enough so that Joanne could be a full-time mom for their twin daughters. He laughs that he had more income as a law student than his starting salary as a lawyer. He finished law school in two and one-half years, second in his class, and collecting several awards to go with this L.L. B. “with Distinction.”
Upon graduation, Howard joined the then nine-attorney firm of Foulston, Siefkin et al in Wichita. Fifty years later, the firm has 90 attorneys. Howard’s specialty was business litigation. He was chairman of the firm when he retired from full-time active practice. He is now counsel to the firm, limiting his practice to dispute resolution services of neutral evaluation, mediation and arbitration.
A close friend and former Eastminster member, Don Hofmann, of Chapel Hill, N.C., commented that Howard has been extremely loyal to the firm. “Bob Howard is a rainmaker lawyer,” says Hofmann, who adds that Howard could have left the firm, hired a few lawyers and have become very wealthy. Howard dismisses any temptations to have done so. “This firm is very important to me. It was a fine law firm before I started here.” Howard’s professional honors include: American College of Trial Lawyers; American Academy of Appellate Lawyers; and the Kansas University School of Law Distinguished Alumnus Citation.
Howard credits Eastminster pastors Keith Seelig and Frank Kik, and his friend Don Hofmann as the key influences in helping him understand what it meant to be a Christian and a Presbyterian. Biblical preaching and teaching Sunday school with Hofmann helped him come to grips with the great doctrines of the Reformed tradition.
“The Gospel was faithfully preached and taught,” Howard says. “Eastminster was built on a solid foundation. And it has flourished. We’ve had strong lay leadership. Session not only supports and advises pastors, but it also exercises authority and significant leadership.” Eastminster was in a growth corridor in Wichita, “but there were other churches in the same corridor that did not flourish,” says Howard. The difference, he believes, is ”faithful preaching and teaching the authentic Gospel and that is what the PCUSA needs if it is to survive and serve the Lord.”