Laura Harrison to Chair UNA President's Cabinet

UNA Foundation patron Laura McAnnally Harrison ('55) was inaugurated as the new Chair of the President's Cabinet at the Cabinet's October 27 meeting.

Laura and her husband Dr. Donald C. Harrison have for many years been leadership contributors to the UNA Foundation. The Laura M. Harrison Professorship in English and the Laura M. Harrison Endowed Scholarship Fund reflect their dedication to academic excellence and to helping make a UNA education affordable for future generations of students. Major gifts for the Laura M. Harrison Fountain and Plaza and the Harrison Entrance contributed immeasurably to the campus beautification program and are enjoyed daily by campus and community.

Mrs. Harrison has been equally generous with her personal time and energy. She is a valued member of the UNA Foundation Board of Directors in addition to her membership in the President's Cabinet. She has been active in various roles with the UNA National Alumni Association and served on the Decade of the Fifties Reunion Organizing Committee.

Please join the UNA Foundation in thanking Laura M. Harrison for accepting her new role as Chair of the UNA President's Cabinet.

FREDDIE AND CAROL WOOD ESTABLISH ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE SCHOLARSHIP ENDOWMENT

Retired UNA administrator Dr. Freddie W. Wood and his wife Carol have contributed $90,000 to the UNA Foundation to endow the Carol W. Wood Achievement Award. The fund will award scholarships based solely upon academic excellence to students in the Department of English majoring in English/Language Arts with an expressed intention of becoming English teachers.

In her touching Preamble to the endowment agreement, Carol Wood recalls her experience as an elementary school student.

"As I look back on the early years of my education, I realize I had dedicated teachers, but not too well prepared or ill-suited to teaching. In the first grade my teacher was seventy-years-old and so feeble the students had to go to her to "recite" or to ask for help, which was grudgingly given.

In the second grade, I had a beginning teacher who left me with only the memory of learning cursive writing, and that she was going to be married. Mid-year my family moved across the county and I attended an eight-grade school that was taught by two teachers. My class consisted of three boys and me. We were all in different reading levels and I paid more attention to the third and fourth grade classes.

When I entered the fourth grade, the enrollment had dropped and the teacher for fifth through eighth grades went to work at the powder mill at Millington, Tennessee, where munitions were being made for the early part of World War II. Therefore, teachers were scarce. (Women who were married could not be hired as teachers.) No one could be found to teach in this position, so all students were then "bused" to Holmes Elementary School, which had eight teachers, one per grade.

In the winter my family moved to another location where we could share crop instead of being day laborers. Then we rode a bus about eight mile to Brighton High School, which had eight elementary teachers and seven high school teachers. I was in a single grade class in the last semester of the fourth and the fifth grades.

Then the school districts were re-zoned and I attended Owen Elementary School, which had three teachers for grades one through eight. I began sixth grade with a teacher who had not taught school for twenty years (she got married)! We played many games, had spelling bees, and did oral reading. There were ten in my class with 32 in this section.

In the seventh grade there was a new teacher, but she left to go to work at the munitions plant mid-year. The incoming teacher had only graduated from high school about 15 years earlier".

Dr. Freddie W. Wood was inspired to establish this endowed fund by his love for the University and respect for his wife Carol's dedication to excellence in teaching.

ED AND CAROLyn GOSA HONOR PARENTS WITH ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP FUND

Lamar County District Judge and President's Cabinet member Lewis Edwin Gosa ('62) and his wife Carolyn Faye Lindley Gosa ('62) of Vernon have established an endowed scholarship fund in the UNA Foundation in memory of their respective parents. The gift was solicited by Dr. G. Daniel Howard, Vice President for University Advancement and Administration, who also authored the touching preamble to the endowment agreement, which reads in part :

"The Gosas and Lindleys possessed a profound sense of the value of an advanced education. They sacrificed long and hard to ensure each of their seven children post-secondary educations. Their laborious efforts literally may have contributed to their shorter than normal life spans; however, each lived long enough to see their dreams materialize. Their Christian faith, impeccable integrity and ideals of excellence greatly inspired and facilitated each of their children to pursue lofty goals. It is with profound respect and abiding love for them that we family members create this scholarship to perpetuate their memory and to tangibly contribute to the continuing training of future educators."

Award preference will be given to students with declared majors in the College of Education who have expressed an interest in becoming teachers.

VIRGINIA O'CONNELL ESTATE ESTABLISHES HONORS PROGRAM SCHOLARSHIP ENDOWMENT

The UNA Foundation is the residuary beneficiary of the estate of Virginia Bayless O'Connell, a 1932 graduate of Florence State Teachers College who died on June 17, 2006, at age 98. In consultation with her friend and executor, Huntsville attorney John W. Green, III, it has been decided that the bequest of approximately $300,000 will establish the Virginia Bayless O'Connell Honors Endowment, which will award scholarships based upon financial need to students in the University Honors Program.

Virginia Bayless O'Connell struggle to pay for her college education at Florence State and her experience of the depression stayed with her for her entire life and shaped her attitudes on social and political issues. Like so many of the depression generation, she became and remained a devoted liberal and lifelong democrat. She was an avid reader and student of current events, who was not satisfied merely to experience the world through the eyes and ears of newscasters and newspapers.

True to her lifelong determination not merely to observe but to be involved, Virginia chose to devote her estate to provide scholarships for talented students who, as she did in her day, struggle to pay for their college educations. In accepting awards from this endowed fund, all future Virginia Bayless O'Connell Scholars will be encouraged and called upon to honor and follow her commitment to scholarship, hard work, community service and philanthropy.

Opportunity Scholarship Endowed Fund

The UNA Foundation is assisting the College of Nursing and Allied Health in soliciting contributions to the Opportunity Scholarship Endowed Fund. The goal of the campaign is to raise $35,000 per year for three years to establish an endowed fund to continue Project OPEN scholarships after the $1 million grant that started the program lapses.

Estate of Katherine Peirce

The UNA Foundation was named as a beneficiary of the estate of Katherine Peirce of Tuscumbia, who died on June 12, 2006. Discussions are ongoing with her executor regarding the most appropriate use of her generous $12,000 legacy gift.

Eleanor P. Gaunder Scholarship Fund

The Department of English has announced plans to establish a scholarship fund in memory of Professor Emerita Eleanor P. Gaunder, wife of retired Professor of Chemistry Dr. Robert G. Gaunder. Professor Eleanor Gaunder died on October 17, 2006, following a brief illness. Inquiries should be directed to Dr. Ronald E. Smith, chair of the Department of English at (256)765-4497.