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Serving Nebraska, Serving Students

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By Susan Houston Klaus

Growing up, the Marsh kids always knew their parents valued an education.

“There was no question we were all going to college,” said Sherry Marsh Tupper, a Burnett Society member. “That was all there was to it.”

Mom and Dad really invested their time in people. They tried to help Nebraska be a better place to live.

Dory Marsh

Today, the Frank and Shirley Marsh Scholarship Fund, established by an exchange student the Marshes hosted, honors their memory and their significant contributions to Nebraska and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Frank and Shirley Marsh both graduated from UNL. Frank earned his bachelor’s degree on the GI Bill after serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, and Shirley earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at UNL.

They both went on to have distinguished careers serving the state of Nebraska.

Beginning in the 1950s, Frank served an 18-year term as secretary of state. He also was lieutenant governor in the 1970s and state treasurer in the 1980s and 1990s.

Shirley was sworn in as the only female Nebraska state senator in 1973 and served District 29 for 16 years. She also was active in numerous community organizations and causes.

The University of Nebraska was always Frank and Shirley’s first pick for their kids. Four of the six Marsh children earned their degrees from UNL.

“It wasn’t like, `Well, we think you should go away to school,’” said their son Dory Marsh. “It was kind of like, `Here’s a land-grant college literally in your neighborhood.’”

The Marshes believed young people from around the world could benefit from a Nebraska education. For several decades, they hosted international students in the American Field Service program.

These students included Charles Ansah, an AFS student from Ghana who graduated from Lincoln Southeast High School and earned a UNL Regents Scholarship. In 1993, Ansah founded one of the first Black-owned pharmaceutical companies in the United States.

Ansah, whom the family considers a brother to the Marsh siblings and who called Frank and Shirley “Mum and Dad,” said he remembered “having discussions during dinner and learning more about the cultural styles from different students and what shaped their perspective on life.”

To honor the Marshes, Ansah established the Frank and Shirley Marsh Scholarship Fund in 2000 to benefit international students. Sherry Marsh Tupper has established a planned gift to support the fund through a charitable gift annuity.

The Marsh children know their parents’ legacy continues through this fund.

“Mom and Dad really invested their time in people, as opposed to making money for themselves,” said Dory Marsh. “They tried to help Nebraska be a better place to live.”

 

Reaching Students Where They Are

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By Robyn Murray

Lou Anne Rinn hasn’t simply considered the benefits of giving back to students at her alma mater, the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She has thought about the most effective ways to reach them — about the obstacles that might stand in their way and how best she can help students get around them.

Rinn, a Burnett Society member, received help in many forms in her education and career, and now she wants to pay it back.

“I’ve been blessed in many ways, and it’s rewarding to be able to share that blessing in a way that makes a tangible difference to a lot of people,” Rinn said.

Rinn was raised in Omaha by Irish American parents. Her father, after serving in the U.S. Navy, worked for Western Electric, helping to find efficiencies in its manufacturing and business processes. Her mother worked as a registered nurse, after raising eight kids in the home. Rinn said her parents were proud of what Irish Americans had achieved in the U.S., and that helped her understand the value of giving back to students from nontraditional backgrounds, including immigrants and people from working-class families.

I've been blessed in many ways, and it's rewarding to be able to share that blessing in a way that makes a tangible difference to a lot of people.

Lou Anne Rinn

“I had the benefit of coming from a family where both of my parents had college degrees and who instilled in me early the expectations that I would go to college,” Rinn said. “There are many other bright young people and not-so-young people who value getting an education but who come from backgrounds where they don’t have the resources to make getting a college education available.”

Rinn has established and supported several scholarships in the College of Arts and Sciences at UNO as outright gifts and as planned gifts through bequests. One she helped create is the Cross the Finish Line Scholarship, which supports students who are close to completing their degrees but need additional financial support to graduate due to unexpected or exceptional circumstances.

Rinn also created a scholarship for returning students, which she said helps those compelled to drop out due to lack of resources or other demands on their time and energy, such as supporting their families. She views the scholarship as a complement to the Cross the Finish Line Scholarship.

“Cross the Finish Line hopefully prevents students from dropping out,” Rinn said, “and Returning Student helps those who did drop out come back and finish what they started.”

Rinn has also set up a fund to support study abroad opportunities and other real-world experiences. She said she has benefited from people willing to make sacrifices to provide her a good education — whether that was her parents paying for private school tuition, the sisters at the Catholic schools she attended or the Regents Scholarship she was awarded to attend UNO.

“Without that education, I would not have had the career opportunities I’ve had,” Rinn said. “That was made possible by other people willing to give money — either by donations or by taxes. So, if I was to thoroughly appreciate that, then I had to be prepared to give back as well.”

Rinn graduated from UNO and went on to study law at Columbia University, where she also received scholarships and financial aid. She then began a successful career as a transportation attorney for Union Pacific. She said she found her career rewarding because she participated during a tumultuous time for transportation law.

“I got to be there at a time when the railroad and railroad industry were having to change from a very bureaucratic, overregulated environment that was focused on some really arcane notions of fairness or equality into one that was being free to respond to market forces in a very competitive transportation world,” Rinn said. “It was a fascinating journey and really interesting to be able to help with that shift.”

Rinn believes her degree at UNO helped her succeed in a constantly shifting environment. She said she used both her economics and

political science majors in her career and also called on other disciplines, such as physics, math, geography, history and logic to solve problems or prepare evidence.

“An arts and sciences degree from UNO equips you to keep learning and to communicate with others about new information,” she said.

Rinn said she believes in the power of education, which is a lifelong journey.

“A college degree is not the end of education,” Rinn said. “It’s really a license to learn. It certifies that you have the capability of absorbing information, thinking critically and communicating, and it doesn’t stop once you get your degree. Those are life skills that are really valuable that you take with you.”

Memorializing a Mother’s Inspiration

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Architecture Grad Drafts Plans to Aid Students

By Ed Rider

Richard Griffin knows what it’s like to come from an underprivileged family. Growing up in Central Missouri as the middle child of a single mother, Richard, a Burnett Society member, didn’t have the resources to pay out-of-state tuition to pursue his degree in architecture.

Thanks to a reciprocal tuition program between the University of Missouri and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Richard earned his degree from the UNL College of Architecture in 1980 and went on to a successful career with firms across the United States.

A longtime resident of Arizona, Richard credited his experiences growing up in Missouri and attending UNL for motivating him to make a planned gift to establish a scholarship in his late mother’s name — the Avanell Fowler Griffin Memorial Scholarship — at the College of Architecture.

“I lucked into the reciprocal program that got me to UNL in the first place,” Richard said. “There are so many students who come from disadvantaged situations who could become successful architects if only given the chance. So, I decided, if I was able, I would provide funding to the College of Architecture to be used specifically for scholarships for disadvantaged students who otherwise may not be able to pursue their dreams. I remember that as a student — every little bit helps.”

In November, Richard visited the College of Architecture and spoke with a group of third-year students. He said the conversations he had with those students, as well as the energy he felt around the college, were inspiring.

“It is clear that the vision for the college that was set in motion when I was a student by Dean (W. Cecil) Steward continues today,” he said.

Among the experiences that motivated Richard to create the gift, which was established as a bequest, were the many people he witnessed giving back to the College of Architecture, either serving as guest lecturers or by engaging students like him who were looking to enter the field of architecture. Richard also credited the history of the college and how graduates from UNL have helped shape the world.

But it was memories of his mother’s resolve while raising her three children alone through the crucial years of middle and high school that inspired Richard to create a scholarship in her memory.

“I decided to name the scholarship after her as a way of ensuring that everyone remember that she did everything she could for me, and all she asked in return was for me not to give her anything to worry about,” Richard said. “She continues to inspire what I do. I feel that honoring her in this way is the least I can do.”

Like Mother, Like Son

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“Mom was a kindhearted soul. She would be more than happy to have what she worked for go to help people in the (nursing) profession.”

Son Honors His Mother With a Gift to Help Others

By Susan Houston Klaus

The first things you learn about Leland Essary are that he’s exceptionally good humored, a great storyteller — and proud of his mother’s accomplishments.

Burnett Society member Leland and his mother, Theta Cole Bullington, shared a love of adventure and of helping others. Theta rose in her profession to be a respected leader in public health nursing; Leland enjoyed a decades-long career in teaching. Along the way, the mother and son didn’t hesitate to lend a hand to people in need.

Born in Stockville, Nebraska, Theta had her sights set on becoming a nurse.

“Her parents were not wealthy people,” Leland said. “When Mom graduated from high school, she went to teach to make money [to be able to go to the university and study nursing]. Her overall goal was not to be a teacher; her overall goal was to be a nurse. It meant a lot to her.”

In 1938, at age 29, Theta earned her general nursing degree. The next year, she received her Bachelor of Nursing degree from what is now the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Theta was a nurse in Pennsylvania during World War II. Later, she moved to Oklahoma, where she worked with the Native American community and then went on to serve in public health nursing in Nevada and as director of public health nursing for Santa Cruz County, California.

A young Leland and his mom returned to Nebraska in the late 1950s, where she renewed her teaching certification, serving in one-room schools. Later, she worked in nursing for the educational service units in North Platte and Kearney.

Theta was always ready to help others. Leland remembers her writing a check to a friend of his and saying, “Pay me back when you can.”

Neighbors in rural Nebraska, with health care many miles away, would ask for her help because they knew she was an RN.

From his mother, Leland learned the value of hard work and pitching in where it was needed.

He worked cattle on his stepdad’s 5,700-acre Sandhills ranch from the time he was 11.

“You fix fences, you put up hay for the winter, you fix wells, herd cattle, chase cattle,” Leland said. “I bet I was on a horse five out of the seven days in a week.”

Leland graduated from McPherson County High School and Kearney State College. Like his mother, he became a teacher.

Leland had taught in Grand Island for eight years when he and three other teachers who enjoyed off-roading were lured by Arizona’s warm climate and plenty of places to ride off-road. Leland moved to Phoenix and joined Washington Elementary School, teaching sixth-grade math and some English.

For Leland, teaching turned out to be a lifelong vocation.

“In 30 years, I never had a class of kids that I just didn’t absolutely love,” he said.

Like his mother, Leland hasn’t hesitated to go the extra mile. A kind gesture nearly 25 years ago turned into a lasting friendship.

In 1999, he met up with a tour group of Amish people whose driver had had a health emergency. Leland volunteered to take them around southwest Colorado. He refused to accept any payment, so one member of the group invited him to visit them in Indiana.

He took them at their word. After he retired, he drove to Indiana, planning to stay a few days and return home. Leland ended up staying in the community for more than three months. He found himself again in the classroom, teaching math and English in a one-room school — the same kind of school at which his mother had taught when she returned to Nebraska.

Theta joined her son in Arizona after retiring in the late 1970s. She loved to travel and enjoyed her years in the Phoenix area.

Recently, Leland said, he had been thinking about how he could honor his mother, who died in 1995, and her career in nursing through his estate. He thought about the recognition Theta received in 1983 from the UNMC Alumni Association, which presented her with its inaugural Distinguished Alumnus Award.

It meant everything to her, Leland said.

“She was so honored by it,” he said, “I got to thinking, what could I do?”

Theta’s enthusiasm for her alma mater helped Leland decide on the perfect gift in her honor: the Theta C. Bullington College of Nursing Scholarship Fund.

It seemed an appropriate tribute to someone “who just lived the nursing profession” and knew it could be difficult for some to afford an education, Leland said.

The endowed gift, which was established as a bequest, will provide a lasting legacy for his mother for decades to come.

“Mom was a kindhearted soul,” Leland said. “She would be more than happy to have what she worked for go to help people in the profession.”

Theta Cole Bullington received the inaugural Distinguished Alumnus Award from UNMC in 1983.

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