$300-Million Art Collection Promised to National Gallery; Other Gifts

Five organizations have received big gifts and pledges:

• The National Gallery of Art, in Washington, has been promised an art collection worth an estimated $300-million from Jane and Robert Meyerhoff, both 79, of Phoenix, Md. The collection, which will be transferred to the gallery after Mr. and Mrs. Meyerhoff die, includes more than 100 works of 20th-century European and American art, including pieces by Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. Mr. Meyerhoff is a real-estate developer.
• The Cleveland Foundation has received an unrestricted bequest, estimated to be worth at least $60-million, from the estate of Nancy and Frank Porter of Geauga County, Ohio. The bequest consists of securities, a modern-art collection, privately held companies, and real estate in California, Idaho, Ohio, and the Virgin Islands. Mr. Porter, who died in June, owned Central Cadillac Company, in Cleveland, and was a real-estate developer. Mrs. Porter died in 1996. The foundation says it will sell everything in the estate to make grants that benefit residents of the Cleveland metropolitan area.
• The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (Minneapolis), has received a pledge of $35-million from T. Denny Sanford, of Sioux Falls, S.D., to help construct a new football stadium. Mr. Sanford, an alumnus, is chairman of the board of United National Bank Holding Company (Sioux Falls).
• Ball State University, in Muncie, Ind., has received a bequest of nearly $17.2-million from the estate of Wallace T. Miller Jr., of Lagrange, Ind., who was chief executive officer of the Miller’s Merry Manor Corporation, now Miller’s Health Systems (Warsaw, Ind.), which operates nursing homes and assisted-living centers in Indiana. Mr. Miller directed that the gift be used to establish a professorship in health economics and create endowments to support the operations of the university’s College of Business, from which he graduated in 1963.
• The University of Washington at Tacoma has received a pledge of $15-million for its business school from Gary E. and James A. Milgard. The Milgards, who are brothers, grew up in Tacoma and founded Milgard Manufacturing, a company in Fife, Wash., that produces vinyl windows. Two-thirds of the pledge, or $10-million, is a grant from the Gary E. Milgard Family Foundation, in Tacoma; the remainder is a gift from James Milgard. The Milgards directed that $12-million be used to help create and support a center for corporate leadership and social responsibility and a center for information-based management, and that $3-million be used for scholarships.

Other recent gifts:

Cornell College (Mount Vernon, Iowa): approximately $2.1-million bequest in the form of Lee Enterprises stock from Betty Geer Dillon, a former bank teller in Mason City, Iowa, who died two years ago, to support scholarships for students of communications.

Mercy Medical Center (Mason City, Iowa): $1.56-million bequest from Betty Geer Dillon, a former bank teller in Mason City, Iowa, who directed that the funds be used to help cancer patients.

North Iowa Area Community College (Mason City): $1.56-million bequest from Betty Geer Dillon, a former bank teller in Mason City, Iowa, who designated that the funds be used to provide college scholarships and loans for local high-school graduates.

Ouachita Baptist U. (Arkadelphia, Ark.): $3-million from Frank D. Hickingbotham, chief executive officer of Hickingbotham Investments (Little Rock, Ark.) and founder of TCBY Enterprises, a frozen-yogurt chain. The funds will help construct a building at the university’s business school.

Saint Leo U. (Fla.): $2.5-million bequest from the estate of Evelyn De Groote and her husband, Gaston, of Tampa, Fla., for the university’s endowment and for scholarships. Mr. De Groote, who was born in Belgium, requested that some of the scholarships go to students from Nazareth, Belgium, his hometown. Mr. De Groote died in 1982 at age 77. His wife died last year at age 90.

U. of California-San Diego (La Jolla): $1-million from Audrey S. Geisel, of La Jolla, widow of the children’s book author Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and president of Dr. Seuss Enterprises, to expand the Faculty Club.