The Philanthropy 50 2009 Gift Profile: Albert P. (Skip) Viragh

Albert P. (Skip) Viragh: $28-million

Beneficiary: Chaminade College Preparatory School

Donor’s background: Mr. Viragh founded the Rydex Fund Group, a mutual-fund company in Rockville, Md.

Mr. Viragh, who was 62 when he died in 2003, left $28-million to Chaminade College Preparatory School, in St. Louis. The money will finance a new center for the arts, which the school plans to name for Mr. Viragh.

A 1959 graduate of the school, Mr. Viragh learned he had pancreatic cancer only a short time before his death; due to the severity of his illness and the speed with which it progressed, there was no time to plan any charitable bequests in his will. Instead, he told his brothers—Bob, who graduated from Chaminade in 1961, and Mark, who graduated from the school in 1966—that he wanted to leave money to Chaminade and left it up to them to handle the bequest. So, in 2007, the brothers and the rest of the Viragh family contacted the school, asking Chaminade officials what they needed most.

The answer was an arts center. After a lengthy process, school officials learned it would cost about $25-million to build the kind of center they wanted, and took that figure to the Viragh family. The family agreed to give that amount, plus an additional $3-million to endow the center, which is scheduled to open in the summer of 2011.

—Maria Di Mento

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