Wayland Baptist University trustees elected Dr. Paul Armes as the President of the WBU System in a specially called, closed meeting on Thursday. Armes has served as president of the Plainview campus since Feb. 2001 after the board voted to restructure the university and promoted then-president Dr. Wallace E. Davis to chancellor in July 2000.

According to Board Chairman Delbert McDougal of Lubbock, Davis' decision to retire effective May 31 meant the trustees had to either fill the position or reorganize again. Their decision, McDougal said, was to refocus the current alignment.

Moving Armes into the system presidency also meant a change for Dr. Bill Hardage, currently the vice chancellor of the system. The board elected Hardage as executive vice president of the system. He will remain responsible for much of the external campus operations as well as Plainview under Armes' direction.

"We have a very strong commitment to the growth of our external campuses, and we felt we could put extra people in place to help that effort," McDougal explained. "We also want to be able to be more aggressive in development efforts, and Dr. Armes will be in charge of helping initiate new ideas in fundraising. We've got the confidence in Dr. Armes to be able to do that."

Hardage has been with Wayland for 36 years, employed first as the track and field assistant coach and a physical education instructor. A 1965 graduate of WBU, he then served as head track coach and later as chairman of the physical education division before moving into administrative roles. He was director of special services, associate academic vice president, advancement vice president, academic vice president and vice president for external programs before being named Provost in Feb. 2000. He was promoted to vice chancellor in July 2000 with the system realignment. He also holds degrees from East Texas State University and Texas Tech University.