Tribble, Harold Wayland, 1899-1986

Dr. Harold Wayland Tribble was born on November 18, 1899, in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was the third of six children born to Henry Wise Tribble and Estelle Carlton Rawlings Tribble. In Charlottesville, his father, a Baptist minister, was president of the Rawlings Institute, a women's college. The Tribble family relocated to Lake City, Florida, in 1909 when his father became president of Columbia College. Harold received his early education in the primary and secondary schools operated by Rawlings Institute and Columbia College. Tribble enrolled at Columbia College in 1915 and in 1917 transferred to Richmond College (now the University of Richmond), where he played varsity basketball and served as editor-in-chief of the Collegian student newspaper as a senior. He was also in the Student Army Training Corps. Tribble graduated in 1919 with an A.B. degree; that year he also was ordained as a Baptist minister and enrolled at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in Louisville, KY. In 1922, he earned a master's degree in theology and earned his theology doctorate in 1925. Tribble was appointed assistant professor of theology in 1925 at SBTS. He earned an M.A. in philosophy in 1927 from the University of Louisville and was appointed full professor at SBTS in 1929. While teaching at SBTS, he wrote three books: Our Doctrines (1929), From Adam to Moses (1934), and Salvation (1940). He revised E. Y. Mullins's The Baptist Faith (1935) and published articles in theological journals. Tribble also studied abroad, enrolling at the University of Bonn, Germany in 1931 and the University of Basel, Switzerland in 1936. In 1937 he earned another doctorate from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Tribble served as pastor of Baptist churches in Cropper, Christiansburg, New Castle, and Simpsonville, KY. In 1947, he was appointed president of Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Center, Massachusetts. On May 4, 1950, he was elected as president of Wake Forest College. As part of his selection, Tribble agreed to the College's move from Wake County to Winston-Salem. The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation offered endowment funding for Wake Forest on condition of the move, which was accepted by Wake Forest and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (its sponsoring body). Tribble led a successful fundraising campaign for the move and on October 15, 1951 President Harry S. Truman was the principal speaker at the groundbreaking exercies.

Tribble's administration suffered several disputes. Some alumni were unhappy with the move to Winston-Salem; others accused Tribble of not supporting the athletic program fully. Some members of the Baptist State Convention also that felt that Wake Forest was not following Baptist traditions. Tribble's aggressive personality and sharp temper put a strain on his relationships with many of the people he worked with, including College trustees. On November 16, 1955, the president of the Board of Trustees selected a nine-man committee to study "serious matters involving the College and its administration." Though conflicts continued with various groups through a seven-month period, in May the Trustees defeated a resolution to impeach Tribble in a 20-13 vote.

Tribble, the Board of Trustees, and the Baptist State Convention continued to disagree while the college continued to thrive. It raised enough money to open its new $19.5 million Winston-Salem campus on June 18, 1956. The College's equity grew exponentially from $10,454,000 to $91,267,900. The student body, which racially integrated in 1962, expanded from 1,750 to more than 3,000 students; faculty numbers increased proportionally. In January 1967, as a result of these developments, the Board of Trustees voted to rename the College "Wake Forest University." Tribble retired in June 1967 after 17 years as president.

In his personal life, Tribble was a Rotarian, a Mason, and member of many fraternities including Phi Beta Kappa, Omicron Delta Kappa, Kappa Sigma, and Tau Kappa Alpha. He attended Wake Forest Baptist Church and the Old Town Club; his favorite pastime was golf. Tribble married Nelle Louise Futch (1898-1984), a graduate of the Women's Missionary Union Training School of Louisville, KY, on June 10, 1925. They had three children: Harold Wayland, Jr. (a clergyman in Long Island, NY), Betty May (an educator in Winston-Salem, NC, aka Mrs. Richard C. Barnett), and Barbara Ann (an artist in Atlanta, GA, aka Mrs. Harvey R. Holding). After retiring, he lived the remaining 19 years of his life in Blowing Rock, N.C., Port St. Lucie, Florida, and the Moravian Home in Winston-Salem. He died on June 17, 1986.