October 12, 2018 | Read Time: 1 minute
The University of Arkansas System received more than $100 million from the Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust, university officials announced on Friday. The trust was set up after Rockefeller, a former Arkansas governor, died in 1973.
The windfall establishes an endowment in his name to support the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute, which hosts and sponsors a variety of civic, cultural, educational, and research programs and conferences. The endowment will be managed by the University of Arkansas Foundation.
The charitable trust created the institute in 2005, and it is housed on Rockefeller’s ranch on Petit Jean Mountain, in Conway County, Ark.
Rockefeller was a philanthropist and an heir to the Standard Oil fortune. He was a member of the third generation of Rockefellers and served as the governor of Arkansas from 1967 to 1971.
Born in New York, he moved to Arkansas in the early 1950s and set up his 927-acre cattle ranch, Winrock International, in 1953. He established a program on the ranch to demonstrate new and creative agricultural practices.
His charitable trust is a separate entity from his Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, which supports efforts to fight poverty and backs economic-development and racial-equality programs.
