Q & A: Get to know the first family of Murray State

Fumi Nakamura/The News Cindy Davies and daughter, Katie Davies, share their lives as the first women of Murray State and their transition to life in Kentucky.
Fumi Nakamura/The News
Cindy Davies and daughter, Katie Davies, share their lives as the first women of Murray State and their transition to life in Kentucky.

Behind President Bob Davies is a support team that never leaves his side.

Aside from the faculty and staff that help Davies organize parties, attend events and stay sane through all of it, his wife, Cindy and daughter, Katie are always with him behind the scenes.

From All Campus Sing to Davies cooking breakfast during the snowstorm, Cindy and Katie said they’ve had fun at every event. The Davies family is always out and about talking to students and getting to know community members, but what is it like behind the scenes?

MW: Where are you from?

Cindy: Katie was born in Boise, Idaho. I lived there for 30 years and she lived there for 30 days. Before Murray, we were in Oregon. Before that it was Buffalo, and before that it was Idaho.

MW: How did you two meet?

Bob: We met Katie at a very young age in the hospital. She was crying. She’s been talking ever since. Oh, I assume you’re talking about Cindy and I. I was at Boise State and Cindy’s best friend worked in my office, and Cindy would kind of help volunteer at various events. I sort of met her through that, but we never really connected. One day Donna, the friend – it was a summer day – she invited me to a pool party. Cindy was there minding her own business.

Cindy: It was an office party. I was all by myself in the pool.  Everybody was on the deck.

Bob: Yeah, everyone was on the deck, and she was on one of those floaty things, and we all thought we would get in the pool and swim around. I thought Cindy should be involved, so I swam underneath the water and (flipped over the raft).

MW: Walk me through a typical day at the Davies’ house.

Cindy: I go to the gym in the morning when it opens at 5:30, and I take Katie to school. I’m just here doing housework, and I pick Katie up from school. She normally has some kind of activity like soccer or horse riding. I’ve been doing lots of sewing lately, and I enjoy that. Since we’ve come to Kentucky we’ve had fabulous company. The first four months, there was maybe one week where we didn’t have company. We enjoy having company, friends and family coming to visit.

MW: Do you like having to go to so many events and being so involved?

Cindy: He’s the one who likes to be out front. We’re (his) support. I think we balance each other out. You can’t have two front people. We prefer to support him

Bob: It’s a good team. You (Cindy and Katie) keep me balanced.

MW: What do you like about Murray State?

Cindy: This is the first time we’ve lived on campus, and we didn’t know if we would like that or not, but it’s great. You can walk to all the events, which is very convenient. Bob enjoys walking to work.

MW: What’s your favorite event so far?

Bob: The step show was really fun. The Tri-Sigs (Sigma Sigma Sigma’s) kind of adopted Katie. And that’s one of the things about Murray State, at other universities we were accepted, but here, it’s more of an immersion. It’s really great to see Katy being accepted by all the students.

MW: Do you plan to stay at Murray State for long?

Katie: I made him sign a contract. No buy-out. We’re here until I’m out of high school at least.

Cindy: She chose Murray State to go to college. She’s the one that started this ball rolling. She wants to go to pre-vet here.

Bob: She wrote a paper about it for a career class, and about a week later she turned it in and showed me, and I got a call about the presidency, so she started it somehow.

Cindy: We didn’t tell her for four months until he was a finalist. Then when we told her, “Your dad’s a finalist at Murray State University for president,” and she said, “Yes!” She loves horses, so Kentucky’s the place to be.

Story by Madison Wepfer, Assistant Features Editor

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