American History Museum Receives $80-Million; Other Big Gifts

Several nonprofit groups are the beneficiaries of multimillion-dollar donations:

• Kenneth E. Behring, a West Coast multimillionaire who made his fortune in real-estate development and automobile businesses, has donated $80-million to the Smithsonian Institution to renovate its National Museum of American History.

  Although the gift is unrestricted, Mr. Behring said he hopes the money will be used to help the museum chronicle individuals’ pursuit of the American dream.

  The gift is the largest ever made by an individual to the institution, museum officials said. Three years ago, Mr. Behring gave $20-million to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History to renovate the museum’s rotunda and Hall of Mammals.

  Mr. Behring, 72, is a former owner of the Seattle Seahawks football team and is responsible for creating the Seattle Seahawks Charitable Foundation, which makes grants to children’s charities.

• Edward H. Harte, former publisher of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, has pledged $46-million to Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi to create the Harte Research Center for Gulf of Mexico Studies.

  Mr. Harte, a longtime resident of Corpus Christi, has designated his gift to endow six professorships and 12 graduate research fellowships for the center, as well as to pay for materials, scholarships, and travel.

• Margaret McDermott, widow of Eugene McDermott, a co-founder of Texas Instruments, has given $32-million to the University of Texas at Dallas to create the Eugene McDermott Scholars Program, which will provide scholarships to 20 outstanding college freshmen each year.

• A $30-million bequest from Louis Edelstein, a lawyer who lived in Atlantic City, will be shared equally by the American Technion Society, the Jerusalem Foundation, and the Hadassah Medical Organization.

  Mr. Edelstein, who died in 1997, did not place any restrictions on the use of the money. The American Technion Society, in New York, raises money to support a university in Israel. The Jerusalem Foundation works to improve the quality of life for residents of that city. The Hadassah Medical Organization runs two hospitals in Jerusalem.

• Charles F. Dolan, founder of Cablevision, and his wife, Helen, of New York City, have donated $25-million to the School of Business at Fairfield University, in Connecticut, as part of the university’s $100-million capital campaign.

  The Dolans’ gift, the largest in the university’s 58-year history, was unrestricted. The institutions will use the money to renovate a former campus conference center to house the school, and to create an endowment that will provide funds for increased student financial aid, new faculty chairs, and improved technology in classrooms. The school will be named for Mr. Dolan, father of two Fairfield graduates and a university trustee since 1981.

• Dennis Barsema, of Monte Sereno, Calif., and his wife, Stacey, have pledged $20-million to Northern Illinois University.

  Mr. Barsema, vice chairman of Redback Networks, in San Jose, Calif., is a 1977 graduate of the university. The gift will be used to construct a new business college on campus that will be named Barsema Hall. Another portion of the gift will be used to create the Dennis and Stacey Barsema Endowed Scholarship in Business.

Other recent gifts:

Emory U. (Ga.):

$5,000,000 from Grace Crum Rollins of Atlanta, widow of O. Wayne Rollins, who founded the Rollins Company, a consumer-services company that includes the subsidiary Orkin Exterminating Company, and her sons, Randall and Gary Rollins, for the O. Wayne and Grace Crum Rollins Endowment Fund.

Minot Area Community Foundation (N.D.): $4,000,000 from Mike and Dorothy Dolan, residents of Minot, for the foundation’s endowment; Mr. Dolan founded concrete, oil, and other businesses.

Northern Kentucky U.: $2,000,000 from Patricia Corbett of Cincinnati to create an endowment for the Corbett String Quartet in Residence.

Pennsylvania State U.: $3,000,000 from William L. Weiss of Chicago, chairman emeritus of Ameritech, and his wife, Josephine, to provide financial aid for students in the Colleges of Engineering and the Liberal Arts; and $1,000,000 from William E. Leonhard of State College, Pa., former chairman of Parsons Corporation, and his wife, Wyllis, to create two new donor-advised funds at the College of Engineering.

Saint Augustine’s College (N.C.): $1,000,000 bequest from Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany of Mount Vernon, N.Y., to create a scholarship fund in honor of their father, Bishop Henry B. Delany, a former vice-principal at the college. The Delany sisters, who graduated from the college in 1910 and 1911, were co-authors of the book Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years.

Trinity College (Conn.): $1,000,000 from Carl H. Tiedemann of New York, chairman of Tiedemann Investment Group, for an endowment that will help pay for expenses of the lacrosse team.

Utah Valley State College: $5,000,000 from Jeff Knowles of Provo, founder of Authorize.Net, and his wife, Molly, to help build its Wasatch campus in Heber City.

West Virginia U.: $5,000,000 from Ray Lane of Atherton, Calif., former president of Oracle Corporation, and his wife, Stephanie, to endow a chair in computer science in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Wright State U. (Ohio): $2,000,000 from Elizabeth Berry Gray of Dayton, daughter of Loren M. Berry, who founded the Berry Company, which developed the “yellow pages,” for the Elizabeth Berry Gray Endowed Chair of Surgery at the School of Medicine.