 President Dennis L. Hefner with Bob Young |
Bob Young and his late wife, Betty, shared a love for music, in addition to their love for one another. Before his wife passed away three years ago, the couple decided they should find a way to support that love through a financial gift to a worthy organization. The only question was, how should they best do that?
“My wife liked music and the piano, and we talked about what we might be able to do,” said Bob, who was married to Betty, a homemaker who also played the piano, for over 55 years.
Then Mr. Young was reminded by a friend about the School of Music at SUNY Fredonia and, despite the fact that neither he nor Betty had any direct affiliation with the university, he found the answer that would make Betty’s dream a reality and help students pursue a career in music.
Bob, 86, presented a $100,000 check to President Dennis Hefner this past summer to establish the Bob and Betty Young Endowment Fund, a memorial to his wife. Income generated by the fund, established through the Fredonia College Foundation and its Doors to Success capital campaign, will fund School of Music scholarships and provide strategic support to the music program.
This gift will have a profound impact on the School of Music by enhancing its ability to furnish scholarships to talented students and fund programs that assist in the recruitment of high school students or enrich the experiences of SUNY Fredonia students.
Beyond creating the endowment, Mr. Young committed to an additional $100,000 bequest to the foundation to benefit the university and its students.
“Everybody I met was very nice,” he said of foundation representatives who hosted a luncheon and conducted a tour of the university that included, of course, a look at Mason Hall. “It looked very nice,” he noted.
A native of Collins, N.Y., Bob was a mechanic at Bethlehem Steel for nearly 20 years and also worked as a field superintendent for Herbert F. Darling, Inc., a construction company based in Williamsville, N.Y., until his retirement in 1989. He is a U.S. Army veteran who earned the rank of sergeant and was stationed in the South Pacific during World War II from 1942 to 1945. He and Betty, a native of Dayton, N.Y., have always called Western New York home.
The foundation relies upon private gifts such as Mr. and Mrs. Young’s to fund scholarships, support research, teaching and capital projects, and enhance academics through speakers, special events, student life and social and cultural programs.
Those gifts often impact people for years to come, a lesson not lost upon Bob who, during a visit to his bank to transfer funds for the endowment, had an unexpected surprise. After noticing the recipient listed on the check, the banker who oversees Mr. Young’s accounts remarked that he was a SUNY Fredonia alumnus. “I made the check out to the college,” Young recalled, “and (the banker) said, ‘I graduated from there with a business degree.’ And I said, ‘it’s a small world.’”
This small world is now a little brighter, thanks to Bob and Betty Young’s generosity.
