C. Robert Haywood, a third generation Kansas resident, is the Kansas Cowboy Hall of Fame's Cowboy Historian Inductee for 2005.
Born August 27, 1921, Robert grew up on his parents', C.O. and Elsie Haywood's, farm in Ford County. During his childhood, he attended classes in a one-room school house located a little over a mile from the family's farm northeast of Fowler, Kansas.
The family moved to Wichita while he was in grade school where his father found work as a carpenter, but was forced by the Depression to return to the family farm. The family did move briefly to California (as did many in the Dust Bowl states) for his father to look for work, but again returned to Fowler, where Haywood graduated from Fowler High School. He attended Dodge City Junior College, where he earned his Associates Degree before entering the United States Navy.
Enlisted as a Navy Medical Corpsman, Haywood served on the U.S.S. Auburn, primarily in the South Pacific and Iwo Jima. While in the Navy he married his wife Marie. After his tour of duty was fulfilled, Robert returned to college receiving his Bachelor of Arts from Kansas University in 1947, as well as his Masters Degree in 1948. That same year, he began teaching at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, while pursuing his Doctorate Degree from the University of North Carolina. His emphasis being history, Haywood wrote his thesis on "Colonial Mercantilism".
Robert continued to work at Southwestern College, where he would one day serve as Dean of the College, until 1966. He then moved to Decatur, Illinois, where he filled the position of Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Millikin University. In 1969, he relocated to Topeka, Kansas and worked for Washburn University, as Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the College.
Always a teacher first, Haywood returned to the classroom at Washburn in 1982, as a distinguished professor of history, for several years before his retirement in 1988 as Professor Emeritus. During his academic career, Haywood published nine books and over a hundred articles featured in academic periodicals dealing with the history of Dodge City, Victorian customs and society, Kansas history, humanities and economy, and a work of western fiction. The Kansas Authors' Club awarded Haywood's work of fiction, The Preacher's Kid, their annual Coffin Award in 1987. Three years later, his book Victorian West: Class and Culture in Kansas Cattle Towns won the Western History Association's Best Non-Fiction Book Award.
Due to his academic and humanitarian accomplishments, Dodge City Community College honored Haywood as an Outstanding Alumni recipient. A touring speaker for the Kansas Humanities Council, Robert gave over 125 presentations about Kansas history. One speaking event brought him back to Dodge City, where on May 23, 2003, Haywood spoke about his life in Ford County and donated his personal history collection, consisting of over 400 volumes, to the Ford County Historical Society. This collection is currently held at the Kansas Heritage Center for public use.
