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Re: Multimillion gift announce today in Sioux Fall
The press conference was not front page news in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, but Chris Solari has a good feature article in the sports section.
SDSU kicks off fund drive
Chris Solari
csolari@argusleader.com
published: 1/9/2004
Sid Bostic cemented his place in South Dakota State history with one shot. Now, the former Jackrabbit basketball player is making an equally-big pitch for the university's future.
Thursday, Bostic returned to Sioux Falls to formally begin the school's "Lifelong Champions" fund-raising campaign. Bostic pledged $1 million and also revealed a $2.75 million donation from the estate of Mildred Stoker White.
The fund-raising drive is an integral part of SDSU's move to Division I, with a goal of raising $20 million over five years. Additional funding is required for new scholarships and facility improvements needed to compete at the higher level.
"We've been right at the top of Division II for a long time," said Bostic, volunteer chairman of the effort who made the game-winning, buzzer-beating basket in the 1963 Division II national championship game. "Considering everything, we're ready for this move, and it's very appropriate."
With those announcements and about $700,000 of anonymous and unnamed donations, the school currently has raised more than $6 million. That includes $2 million already in an endowment, Athletic Director Fred Oien said.
Interest from the endowment, not the actual donations, funds the scholarships. Thursday's two major donations will provide about $265,000 annually in revenue.
"This gives us a level source of funding forever, because we don't touch the principal. We're only touching the earnings off the endowment," Oien said.
Bostic, a retired banker and 1964 alumnus, now lives in Rio Verde, Ariz. His gift bears both his name and that of his wife Bonnie, a 1967 SDSU alumna who died in 2000.
"In my mind, it's payback time," Bostic said. "I'd say that the reaction (of prospective donors) has been 95 percent positive. We have a lot of things in the mill right now that I am very confident that are going to come to fruition in terms of additional money that is going to come in."
White was born in Sioux Falls and graduated from Washington High in 1930. She made her first donations to SDSU in the 1990s to honor her husband Roger White, who attended the university for 12 weeks in 1929 before the Great Depression ended his formal education.
Roger White, a 1929 Washington High grad, went on to start his own furniture company in Illinois and died in 1972. Mildred White died in March 2002. She previously had donated more than $600,000 to SDSU and even has an athletic scholarship named after her dog, Dakotah.
White's generosity was sparked by a Sioux proverb her mother taught her while growing up in Sioux Falls.
"That was, ÔNothing can enter a clenched fist,' " said V.J. Smith, executive director of the SDSU Alumni Association. "If you want to receive in life, you must first learn how to give, because truly whatever goes out of your hand comes back to your hand. And she learned that lesson well."
Keith Mahlum, the school's athletic director for external affairs and major gifts, said White's donation will fund 12 full scholarships annually. SDSU has received $2 million of it already, with the remainder arriving once her estate closes.
"The long-term strategy here is that every athletic scholarship is funded from this kind of a source," Oien said.
April is goal to have conference in place
South Dakota State athletic director Fred Oien and four other university officials left Thursday for the NCAA Convention in Nashville, Tenn.
They will take part in a training session for schools in the first year of the transition to Division I, and Oien also may talk with other athletic directors who hope to form a new Division I-AA football conference.
Schools discussing the conference are SDSU, North Dakota State, Northern Colorado, Southern Utah, California-Davis, Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo and St. Mary's (Calif.).
Gene Taylor, athletic director at NDSU, said no formal meetings are planned between the schools, since it's likely that only four of the universities will have representatives in Nashville. The convention ends Monday.
Though no agreement has been finalized, April is the target month to have everything in place for the yet-to-be-named league. That's when the NCAA Division I Membership Committee meets to review applications.
"If we run into one another, since not everyone's going to be there, we'll catch up and see if anybody has questions," Taylor said. "We're still talking."
Reach Chris Solari at 977-3923.
Copyright 2003 Argus Leader. All rights reserved
USA Today | USA Weekend | Gannett Co. Inc. | Gannett Foundation | PheasantCountry.com
The press conference was not front page news in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, but Chris Solari has a good feature article in the sports section.
SDSU kicks off fund drive
Chris Solari
csolari@argusleader.com
published: 1/9/2004
Sid Bostic cemented his place in South Dakota State history with one shot. Now, the former Jackrabbit basketball player is making an equally-big pitch for the university's future.
Thursday, Bostic returned to Sioux Falls to formally begin the school's "Lifelong Champions" fund-raising campaign. Bostic pledged $1 million and also revealed a $2.75 million donation from the estate of Mildred Stoker White.
The fund-raising drive is an integral part of SDSU's move to Division I, with a goal of raising $20 million over five years. Additional funding is required for new scholarships and facility improvements needed to compete at the higher level.
"We've been right at the top of Division II for a long time," said Bostic, volunteer chairman of the effort who made the game-winning, buzzer-beating basket in the 1963 Division II national championship game. "Considering everything, we're ready for this move, and it's very appropriate."
With those announcements and about $700,000 of anonymous and unnamed donations, the school currently has raised more than $6 million. That includes $2 million already in an endowment, Athletic Director Fred Oien said.
Interest from the endowment, not the actual donations, funds the scholarships. Thursday's two major donations will provide about $265,000 annually in revenue.
"This gives us a level source of funding forever, because we don't touch the principal. We're only touching the earnings off the endowment," Oien said.
Bostic, a retired banker and 1964 alumnus, now lives in Rio Verde, Ariz. His gift bears both his name and that of his wife Bonnie, a 1967 SDSU alumna who died in 2000.
"In my mind, it's payback time," Bostic said. "I'd say that the reaction (of prospective donors) has been 95 percent positive. We have a lot of things in the mill right now that I am very confident that are going to come to fruition in terms of additional money that is going to come in."
White was born in Sioux Falls and graduated from Washington High in 1930. She made her first donations to SDSU in the 1990s to honor her husband Roger White, who attended the university for 12 weeks in 1929 before the Great Depression ended his formal education.
Roger White, a 1929 Washington High grad, went on to start his own furniture company in Illinois and died in 1972. Mildred White died in March 2002. She previously had donated more than $600,000 to SDSU and even has an athletic scholarship named after her dog, Dakotah.
White's generosity was sparked by a Sioux proverb her mother taught her while growing up in Sioux Falls.
"That was, ÔNothing can enter a clenched fist,' " said V.J. Smith, executive director of the SDSU Alumni Association. "If you want to receive in life, you must first learn how to give, because truly whatever goes out of your hand comes back to your hand. And she learned that lesson well."
Keith Mahlum, the school's athletic director for external affairs and major gifts, said White's donation will fund 12 full scholarships annually. SDSU has received $2 million of it already, with the remainder arriving once her estate closes.
"The long-term strategy here is that every athletic scholarship is funded from this kind of a source," Oien said.
April is goal to have conference in place
South Dakota State athletic director Fred Oien and four other university officials left Thursday for the NCAA Convention in Nashville, Tenn.
They will take part in a training session for schools in the first year of the transition to Division I, and Oien also may talk with other athletic directors who hope to form a new Division I-AA football conference.
Schools discussing the conference are SDSU, North Dakota State, Northern Colorado, Southern Utah, California-Davis, Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo and St. Mary's (Calif.).
Gene Taylor, athletic director at NDSU, said no formal meetings are planned between the schools, since it's likely that only four of the universities will have representatives in Nashville. The convention ends Monday.
Though no agreement has been finalized, April is the target month to have everything in place for the yet-to-be-named league. That's when the NCAA Division I Membership Committee meets to review applications.
"If we run into one another, since not everyone's going to be there, we'll catch up and see if anybody has questions," Taylor said. "We're still talking."
Reach Chris Solari at 977-3923.
Copyright 2003 Argus Leader. All rights reserved
USA Today | USA Weekend | Gannett Co. Inc. | Gannett Foundation | PheasantCountry.com
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