Financier Gives $50-Million in Scholarships for Youths in New York City

Several institutions have received big gifts.

* Theodore J. Forstmann, the financier, has given $50-million to the Children’s Scholarship Fund, in New York, to provide scholarships for poor kids in the city to attend parochial and private schools.

Mr. Forstmann and John Walton established the fund in 1998 with gifts of $50-million each; the organization’s goal is to make private education affordable for parents who would otherwise send their children to public schools. Mr. Forstmann’s recent donation will finance 7,500 four-year scholarships for students in kindergarten to eighth grade.

* Billy Joe (Red) McCombs, owner of the Minnesota Vikings football team, has donated $50-million to the Business School at the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. McCombs attended the university in the late 1940’s but did not graduate. He attached no restrictions to the cash gift. The university has renamed the school after Mr. McCombs, who also owns automobile dealerships, radio and television stations, and an oil company.

* Gary Winneck, chairman of the fiber-optics company Global Crossing, and of Pacific Capital Group, has given $40-million to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in Los Angeles, to construct an institute to promote peace and tolerance. The complex will be built in Jerusalem and is expected to be completed in 2004.

* The brothers Bruce, Craig, John, and Keith McCaw have given $20-million to the Seattle Center Foundation for the renovation of the Seattle Opera House. The siblings made billions when Craig McCaw sold the family’s cellular telephone company to AT&T in 1994.

* An anonymous donor has given $20-million to Stanford University, in Palo Alto, Calif., to help attract and retain female faculty members and students in science and engineering. The donor established three endowments — for graduate fellowships, for undergraduate scholarships, and for the provost to use in hiring faculty members.

Other recent gifts:

Connecticut Historical Society: $7,333,000 bequest from the estate of Cedric R. Boardman of West Hartford, Conn., an investment broker, for unrestricted use.

Guilford College (N.C.): $2,000,000 from Edward J. Bauman of Greensboro, N.C., former chief executive officer of Blue Bell Inc., and his wife, Vivien, for the capital campaign.

Ouachita Baptist U. (Ark.): $3,000,000 from Chesley Pruet of El Dorado, Ark., a businessman, and his wife, Elizabeth, for the School of Christian Studies.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (Ind.): $1,389,955 bequest from the estate of Charles Yohe of Lima, Ohio, the former owner of Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken restaurants, for scholarships.

San Antonio Hospital Foundation (Calif.): Charitable remainder unitrust valued at $3,600,000 from Orval Olive of Upland, Calif., a former driver for and stockholder of United Parcel Service, and his wife, Edna, for unrestricted use.

Southern Methodist U. (Tex.): $5,000,000 from Linda and Mitch Hart of Dallas, vice chairman and chief executive officer, and chairman, respectively, of the Hart Group, to establish a center to study Internet technology and apply it to several disciplines.

U. of Florida: $2,000,000 from John Crayton Pruitt of St. Petersburg, Fla., a heart surgeon, to endow the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program.

Wayne State U. (Mich.): $2,500,000 from Spencer M. Partrich of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., a real-estate developer, for the Law School’s capital campaign.

Yale U. (Conn.): $3,000,000 from a Swiss family wishing to remain anonymous, for research on personality disorders, at the School of Medicine.