Published: July 24, 2008 01:32 pm         

500 contribute to endowments

Oklahoma State University announced Wednesday more than $1.6 million in donations received from more than 500 alumni and friends to fund four endowed professorships and one chair within the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology. Once fully matched dollar-for-dollar by Boone Pickens’ $100 million chair match commitment, as well as the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, the gifts will provide nearly $6.5 million of impact in endowed funds.

Contributing donors include Lew and Myra Ward and Ray and Linda Booker as well as several pooled donations to the Dale F. Janes Professorship in Fire Protection, the Wilson Bentley Professorship in Industrial Engineering and Management and the Centennial Professorship in Architecture and Architectural Engineering.

A $500,000 gift from the Wards, of Enid, will create a petroleum engineering chair to support the college’s emerging interdisciplinary petroleum engineering program. The founder of Ward Petroleum, Lew began the company in 1963 near Enid. Since that time Ward Petroleum has drilled more than 800 wells in the Anadarko and Arkoma basins, some as deep as 22,000 feet.

Tulsa residents Dr. Ray and Linda Booker provided a $250,000 donation to the college to create an aerospace engineering professorship. The president of Aviation Technologies, Inc., Ray received a mechanical engineering degree from OSU in 1957.

Additionally, three professorships were setup through substantial donations made from a collective group of donors.

More than $370,000 was received from 528 donors to create a fire protection and safety technology professorship honoring former FPST department head Dr. Dale F. Janes. Janes was department head of the School of Fire Protection and Safety Engineering Technology from 1971-81.

An industrial engineering and management professorship honoring former IE&M department head Dr. Wilson Bentley was funded by $250,000 received from 20 donors. Bentley served OSU’s engineering college from 1957-71, 14 years as head of the department of industrial engineering and management.

Approximately 30 donors united to fund a $450,000 professorship within the school of architecture; the school’s first endowed position. Fundraising efforts for the chair capitalized on the 100th anniversary of the school.

     

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.