Donors Give Nearly $10 Million To UK For Endowments

DONORS GIVE NEARLY $8 MILLION
TO UK FOR ENDOWMENTS

The board accepted $9.45 million in gifts from five donors. All of the gifts will establish new endowments or enhance existing ones.

June 6, 2000 – (Lexington, Ky.) – The University of Kentucky Board of Trustees today accepted $7.45 million in gifts from five donors, including a $7 million gift from a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., venture capitalist. All of the gifts will establish new endowments or enhance existing ones.

Douglas J. Von Allmen of Fort Lauderdale, chairman of St. Louis-based Group One Capital, gave the $7 million gift to the Gatton College of Business and Economics. The lion’s share of the gift, $5 million, will establish an endowed chair in accountancy and support graduate student fellowships and research, while $2 million will support research in the UK Gatton College of Business and Economics’ Center for Entrepreneurship.

In appreciation for the Von Allmen gift, UK President Charles T. Wethington Jr. said he will recommend in August that the board name the Gatton College’s accountancy school the Douglas J. Von Allmen School of Accountancy. In addition, he will recommend the entrepreneurship center be named the Douglas J. Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship and E-Commerce.

Paul W. Chellgren, a UK trustee and chairman of Ashland Inc., gave a total of $375,000. Chellgren gave $250,000 to a previous gift, upgrading the existing Chellgren Endowed Professorship in Corporate Strategy in the Gatton College to the Chellgren Endowed Chair in Corporate Strategy.

Chellgren’s second gift, $125,000, establishes the Wilbur E. Chellgren Professorship in Accountancy in the Gatton College. The endowment honors Chellgren’s father.

Michael A. Pachtman of Paradise Valley, Ariz., gave $50,000 to establish the Judith Ann Powell Pachtman, M.D., Professorship in Obstetrics and Gynocology Research in the UK College of Medicine.

A gift from the late Robert F. Corum of Crestwood, Ky., provides $25,000 for the Don Corum/National Nursery Products Landscape Research Endowment in the College of Agriculture’s Department of Horticulture.

The gifts are contingent on matches by the state’s Research Challenge Trust Fund.

The board also accepted an in-kind gift of $1.27 million from Wade H. Hall of Louisville. Hall sold a collection of American letters and diaries, valued at $1.57 million, to the UK Libraries for $300,000, resulting in the in-kind gift.