$52.6-Million Bequest From Businessman Goes to U.Va.; Other Gifts to Charities

The University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, has received a $52.6-million bequest from Ward Buchanan, a retired Procter & Gamble executive who graduated from the university’s law school in 1914.

Mr. Buchanan, who died in 1942, stipulated in his will that a trust be created to provide income to his family and that, upon the death of his last surviving heir, the trust’s assets would go to the university for “hospital purposes.” The money will endow a fund to support the university’s hospitals and medical clinics.

Other nonprofit organizations received big gifts:

Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Foundation (Tifton, Ga.): Golf course valued at $1-million from Larry Moorman, an ophthalmologist in Tifton, and his wife, Debra, for use by the college’s golf club-management and other programs.

Auburn U. (Ala.): $4-million pledge from Jim Lawson, of Cary, N.C., who works as a consultant to venture capitalists in the field of technology, and his wife, Andrea, for the university’s athletics program.

Cape Cod Hospital (Hyannis, Mass.): $3-million from Paul Lorusso, of Barnstable, Mass., a real-estate owner and developer, and his wife, Lila, for cardiac-treatment programs.

Coastal Carolina U. (Conway, S.C.): $1.8-million bequest from Rebecca Randall Bryan for construction projects and other university programs.

Duke U. (Durham, N.C.): $1.3-million from Lawrence D. Lenihan Jr., the managing director of Pequot Capital Management, in Westport, Conn., and a Duke alumnus, to help build an engineering laboratory.

Greenville College (Ill.): $2-million bequest from a donor who wished to remain anonymous, to purchase a church that will be used as a music center.

Middlebury College (Vt.): $1.5-million from William F. (Ted) Truscott, chief investment officer at American Express Financial Advisors, in Minneapolis, and his wife, Kathy O’Connor Truscott, to endow a professorship in the Chinese department.

Monmouth College (Ill.): $1.5-million pledge from Arthur Dahl, of Muscatine, Iowa, a retired senior vice president at HON Industries, to help renovate the college’s oldest academic building.

Morehouse College (Atlanta): $1.5-million from Eugene Mitchell, the nephew of Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone with the Wind, to endow a dean’s chair in the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Oregon Public Broadcasting (Portland): $3.5-million bequest from Wyllis Johnson, of Vancouver, Wash., a retired dentist, for endowment.

Pacific U. (Forest Grove, Ore.): $3.6-million bequest from Wyllis Johnson, of Vancouver, Wash., a retired dentist and a 1941 graduate of the university, to help construct a new library.

Pennsylvania State U. (University Park): $2-million from Ric Struthers, of Greenville, Del., executive vice chairman of MBNA America Bank, and his wife, Sharon, to help construct a new building for the Smeal College of Business Administration.

Quinnipiac U. (Hamden, Conn.): $2-million pledge from S. Prestley Blake, of Somers, Conn., founder of the Friendly Ice Cream Corporation, and his wife, Helen, a 1951 graduate of the university, to endow a scholarship.

Reed College (Portland, Ore.): $2-million from James C. March, of Petaluma, Calif., a retired partner at WJM Technologies, a software company, and his wife, Melissa, to endow a chair in the humanities and to encourage other donations in honor of his class’s 25th-year reunion; $1-million pledge from Thormund A. Miller, of Atherton, Calif., a retired vice president of Southern Pacific Transportation, and his wife, Hannah, to help endow a chair in economic history; and $1-million from Walter Mintz, a retired founding partner of Cumberland Associates, an investment company in New York, and his wife, Sandy, to help endow a chair in economic history.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y.): $7-million from Morris (Marty) Silverman, of New York, for biotechnology research.

Rutgers U. at New Brunswick (N.J.): $1-million challenge pledge from Allen and Joan Bildner, of Short Hills, N.J., the former owners of Kings Supermarkets, to endow a professorship in Jewish studies.

Santa Monica College Foundation (Calif.): $1.5-million unrestricted bequest from John F. Drescher, of Santa Monica, a pilot and aviation engineer. The foundation has designated that a portion of the donation will endow an earth-science professorship.

Stephens College (Columbia, Mo.): $2.5-million matching pledge from William Kimball, of Belvedere, Calif., principal of Kimball & Company, an investment and real-estate company in San Francisco, and his wife, Gretchen Bush Kimball, who received an associate’s degree from the college in 1957, to help restore a building on campus.

U. of Iowa Foundation (Iowa City): $1-million pledge from B.W. Carpenter, of Coralville, Iowa, for the university’s athletics department, hospital system, and medical and nursing schools.

U. of Maine at Farmington: $5-million from an anonymous donor to help build a new community arts center and to support arts programs in western Maine; and $1.3-million from Bill Berry, of Farmington, a professor emeritus of geology and geosciences at the university, to endow a professorship in geology.

U. of Nevada at Las Vegas: $9.7-million from Barbara Greenspun, of Las Vegas, the publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, her late husband, Hank, and their family, to help construct a new building for the College of Urban Affairs.

U. of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia): $10-million pledge from J. Peter Skirkanich, an alumnus who founded Fox Asset Management, in Little Silver, N.J., and his wife, Geri, to help construct a bioengineering building.

U. of Rochester Medical Center (N.Y.): $14-million pledge from B. Thomas Golisano, founder of Paychex, a payroll and human resource-services company in Rochester, for the newly named Golisano Children’s Hospital at Strong.

Vermont Public Radio (Colchester): $1-million pledge from Wes and Terry Phillips to endow the station’s classical-music programs.