Andrews, Robert Macon

18 Aug. 1870–10 Mar. 1947

Robert Macon Andrews, Methodist Protestant minister, educator, and administrator, was the first president of High Point College. He was born near Chapel Hill, the son of Manly and Martha Cheek Andrews, and was educated in the public schools of Orange and Alamance counties, at Yadkin College, and at the Yale Divinity School. In 1896 he was admitted on trial into the North Carolina Annual Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church and served on the Roanoke circuit, in the Halifax County area, until 1898, when he was ordained an elder and elected into full membership in the conference. He was assigned that year to the Asheville and Swannanoa mission, and from then until 1900 he worked under the direction of the board of missions and church extension, making surveys in the interest of establishing churches. After 1900, Andrews served appointments on the Granville circuit; Grace Church, Greensboro (twice); Mebane; Henderson; Charlotte; and the West End and Bethel Battleground churches in Greensboro. Following his retirement in 1942, he served as the supply pastor of Mount Pleasant Church in the Greensboro district.

This succession of appointments was interrupted by six positions of high leadership in the Methodist Protestant Church. He twice served as president of the North Carolina annual conference (1917–21 and 1932–36); he was the field agent for the promotion of High Point College for two years and was immediately elected the first president of the college when it opened in 1924. From 1936 to 1939 he served as the editor of the Methodist Protestant Herald, published in Greensboro.

Andrews was eight times a delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church. He was also a delegate to the Uniting Conference of the Methodist Church in Kansas City in 1939. He was awarded the D.D. degree in June 1919 by Adrian College in Michigan.

Andrews married Olive Harris, a member of a prominent Methodist Protestant family in Henderson, on 15 Dec. 1909. His death occurred in Greensboro, and he was buried in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery there. Mrs. Andrews died on 25 May 1969.