You would not be mistaken to consider Greg and Wya Graves as a “prototypical” College Station couple, at least as far as permanent residents are concerned.

Greg teaches at Texas A&M as a professor of practice in the College of Engineering. Wya is mother to their four daughters and an A&M graduate. She was also a cheerleader at Odessa Permian High School during the Friday Night Lights era made famous by the book, movie, and television series of the same name.

The Graves have been married for nearly 30 years.

Wya’s father was an orthopedic surgeon. He was born in Indonesia to Dutch parents and, as a child during World War II, spent time in a Japanese concentration camp. Because of the suffering he saw there, he vowed he would pursue medicine...if he had the chance.

Greg’s father, Howard, grew up in the Texas panhandle. As a two-year-old, he nearly drowned trying to baptize a cat. After graduating from Amarillo High School, Howard Graves received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Howard Graves became a Lieutenant General in the U.S. Army. Among many appointments in a distinguished military career, Graves served as assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, superintendent at West Point, and in 1999, in a move which brought him to College Station, Graves became the 11th chancellor of the Texas A&M University System.

Throughout a lifetime of service to his country, the faith Graves evidenced as a small boy remained strong. His life and commitment to his Lord and Savior set a shining example for many.

Both in life and death.

Graves held the A&M System chancellor’s post for four years. He resigned on September 13, 2003, as a result of the toll which a rare form of cancer had taken on him. Just three weeks later, he died at the age of 64.

Upon Graves’ announcement of his intended resignation as chancellor, Robert Gates, who had assumed the presidency of Texas A&M’s main campus under Graves’ watch, said, “If I look back on the last year, there is a cohesion in the System and a goodwill that I think did not exist before Howard came.”

In reflecting on Graves’ tenure as chancellor, Regent Phil Adams of Bryan says, “General Howard Graves was a strong leader and a wonderful human being. Following a distinguished military career, Howard grew to love Texas A&M: our culture, traditions, and conservative values. Howard was a fine man and a fine leader.”

Howard Graves was also an uncommon warrior. Upon graduation from West Point, he was named a Rhodes Scholar and spent his first three years of active military service in the successful pursuit of a Bachelor of Arts degree from England’s Oxford University.

He would return twice to the famed British school for two graduate degrees, but he also spent time on the battlefield with an engineering battalion during the Vietnam War.

Those who loved and knew Graves best believe it was exposure there to an infamous tactical defoliant which may have triggered the cancer from which he ultimately died.

The U.S Department of Agriculture, working with the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the mid-1960s, developed the herbicidal mixture which came to be known as “Agent Orange.”

The compound was tested before deployment at the Texas A&M’s Research Annex, now called the RELLIS Campus, on the site of the old Bryan Air Force Base.

Millions of people, including thousands of U.S. military personnel stationed in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, are believed to have suffered harmful effects from exposure to Agent Orange.

Graves held no remorse for the fateful hand he was dealt. Instead, he called upon his faith to bring peace, both to himself and his family, as well as friends and colleagues. He kept all informed of his health in a series of correspondence he distributed in the months before his death. In his last note he said:

Howard Graves possessed two characteristics which set him apart from most.

“He was brilliant,” Greg Graves says today of his father. “But he was also a people person.

“Make no mistake, he was the head of our household when I was a kid, even when he was gone from home, and that was a lot,” Greg continues. “He once bought two pair of boxing gloves for Christmas and after we put them on, he proceeded to punch me in the nose.

“The blow stung, but there was a lesson to be learned from that. He was always teaching, training. Once I had children of my own, I had an even greater appreciation for the example he set for both my sister and me.”

Greg Graves ultimately received an appointment to West Point himself, following in his father’s footsteps. While a cadet in the late 1980s, Greg was introduced to his future wife by close friends of his parents living in College Station.

At the time, Andy Seidel was pastor of Grace Bible Church in College Station. He and his wife Gail had become well-acquainted with Wya Geitz. They were also friends with Howard and Gracie Graves. Andy and Howard had gone to West Point together and formed a lasting bond there.

“Over Christmas one year, Mom told Gail that I was never going to settle down,” Greg remembers. “Gail told Mom she thought she might know the perfect girl for me. That was Wya.”

At the time, Howard Graves was working as commandant of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He soon moved to the Pentagon in Washington to assume his position with the Joint Chiefs. In 1991 took his post at West Point, serving there until his retirement from the military in 1996.

“Dad actually became a general while I was in ‘beast barracks’ at West Point,” Greg says. “‘Beast barracks’ is the period of orientation incoming students experience before entering their first year.at the Academy.”

Being a general’s son made life “interesting” for Plebe Graves.

“‘Your dad’s a general? What happened to YOU???’ I heard that a lot,” Greg laughs.

Greg graduated from West Point in 1988 and married Wya after her graduation from A&M in 1990.

For several years after his time at Oxford, Howard Graves taught at West Point. Greg chose to follow a similar course for his military career.

“When the Army agreed to send me to grad school, I wound up coming to Texas A&M. We spent two years here, from 1996 to 1998, as I worked toward my master’s degree in engineering. I then received a teaching assignment at West Point, and while Wya and I were there, Dad was offered the chancellor’s position with the A&M System.”

After his retirement from the Army, Howard Graves became a visiting professor for the Lyndon Johnson School of Public Service at the University of Texas in Austin. As Graves became known to state educational leaders and political figures, his profile rose. Given his military background, he seemed a perfect cultural fit for the Texas A&M System and was named chancellor in August of 1999.

Soon though, Graves was diagnosed with cancer. He served most of his term as chancellor battling the disease, making frequent two-hour trips to Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center for treatment.

Among Graves’ closest confidants through his fight with cancer was Pastor Andy Seidel.

Years before Howard and Gracie moved to College Station, Seidel had moved from the city and taken a position with the Dallas Theological Seminary. As executive director of the DTS Hendricks Center, Seidel led efforts to provide Christian-based leadership training for seminary students and church ministers, as well as business leaders.

After Howard Graves moved to Texas, Seidel was eager to have him come to Dallas and speak to students about his own leadership experiences. That proved a difficult chore, first because of the disease and then because of the demanding schedule Graves maintained as chancellor through his illness.

Ultimately, Seidel chose to make a trip to College Station and record a video interview with his long-time friend.

Despite his condition, Graves was pleased to share his thoughts and expertise.

Among Greg Graves most prized possessions is a DVD of Seidel’s interview with his father. In a postscript to the pair’s discussions about leadership, Graves spoke frankly with Seidel about his illness and his faith.

On the DVD, Seidel sets the tone for what Graves has to share about his Christian life by referencing the oxygen tank sitting just off camera. While Graves has an optimistic attitude, his physical appearance and raspy voice belie the ravages of both his disease and the chemotherapy he’d undergone.

Seidel asks, “At this point of your life, where are you now and what’s most important to you?”

Howard Graves response is both noteworthy and inspirational.

Before he died, Howard Graves planned every detail of his memorial services. Those ultimately took place both at Grace Bible Church in College Station, where he and his wife had become members, as well as at the Cadet Chapel at West Point. Graves is buried at the West Point Cemetery alongside the likes of Generals William Hay, Norman Schwarzkopf, and George Armstrong Custer, as well as Colonel Ed White, who died in the line of duty as an American astronaut.

Assigned by the U.S. Army back to College Station to pursue a Ph.D. in engineering at A&M, Greg Graves was able to spend the last three months of his father’s life in close proximity. His mother, Gracie, still lives in the Bryan/College Station area.

After his father’s death, Greg received his doctoral degree from Texas A&M. He then was assigned a tour of duty in Iraq. Like his father, he then spent time on active duty teaching at West Point. After retiring from the army, Greg, Wya, and their daughters returned to College Station in 2015.

To know Greg Graves is to know the kind of man his father was. Greg bears a strong resemblance to his father, both in physical appearance and in his spiritual nature.

During his West Point eulogy for General Howard Graves, Greg said,