A $1 million donation from the estate of a former Columbia Public Colleges trainer will make it possible for the Columbia Public Colleges Foundation to supply scholarships for pupils and finance college district and teacher projects.
The setting for the announcement was Jefferson Middle Faculty, in which donor Kathryn McLeod taught actual physical training for quite a few decades when it was Jefferson Junior High College. Acknowledged as Kay, she died in 2019 at age 92.
She and her partner, James “Mac” McLeod, taught in Columbia from 1948 to 1972. Mac McLeod served as boys basketball mentor at Hickman Large College.
She retired in El Paso, Texas, in 2001.
“When I went in this article, it was Jeff Junior and I have not got more than that,” mentioned Cindy Mustard, foundation president.
“Twenty-5 decades back, a group of founders came together to assistance their neighborhood faculties,” Mustard mentioned of the foundation’s get started.
The basis is proud of its assistance for college students above the years, Mustard reported.
“It’s possible I should say students,” she explained, noting Superintendent Brian Yearwood in the audience and the expression he makes use of for students.
The foundation has financed $1.4 million in college jobs around the yrs.
The McLeods believed in the benefit of the foundation, Mustard stated.
“You cannot feel how pleasant it is to have this,” she claimed. “It will permit us to double the endeavours of the foundation.”
Mustard quoted from Kay McLeod’s assertion when she been given the foundation’s retired educator award in 2013.
“To me the most complicated position is instructing,” Mustard examine from the statement. “All learners have prospective and our career was to assist it emerge.”
After the function, Mustard claimed the foundation will get concepts for expending the revenue from academics and other individuals in the district. In the past 12 months, the basis has financed the invest in of 100,000 experience masks, school materials and previous summer’s feeding program for students.
In the previous it has delivered funds for Struggle High College pupils to create a small house and for learners to monitor a film at Jesse Auditorium during Correct/Fake Movie Fest.
“They have got the concepts,” Mustard mentioned. “We have some cash.”
With the new donation, Mustard reported she thinks the foundation’s endowment is around $3 million.
Fellow educator Margaret Niemeyer, a longtime good friend of McLeod, was at the celebration. She considered the basis would be a excellent in shape for her good friend, she claimed.
“I brought it to Kay’s interest,” Niemeyer explained of the basis.
Understanding Kay, Niemeyer stated the basis will not surprise her. Kay decided on the donation years just before her dying, she stated.
“She was a multi-proficient woman,” stated Niemeyer, who retired in 1993 when she was principal of the new Mill Creek Elementary College.
Kay McLeod’s brother-in-regulation, Gary McLeod, reported his sister-in-law volunteered following retirement.
“She was under no circumstances a person to sit and do nothing at all,” he stated.
The Columbia Public Educational facilities Basis is a personal, not-for-income group created to help the university district.
rmckinney@columbiatribune.com
573-815-1719.