Meet Our Donors - Fred Griffin

Fred Griffin found rewards in planned giving

Fred Griffin was well known as a generous man who loved and supported Lyon College, but when he passed away in September, his family stepped up and took over where Fred’s work left off.

Tim Bruner, Lyon’s vice president of Institutional Advancement, said Griffin was a “money saver, not a money maker,” but he still managed to donate significant sums to Lyon College. In addition to monetary gifts, Griffin also gave the College a car which campus security still uses and a house which was sold and the proceeds used to help fund College programs and goals.

After Griffin passed, his family worked diligently to help the College get Paid On Death (POD) benefits transferred to Lyon, Bruner said. All told, those donations, along with some of his previous gifts, totaled more than $1 million.

“The support Fred’s family showed to his plans and to Lyon College is very rare,” Bruner said. “They supported all his philanthropic efforts, questioning nothing. It’s encouraging to work with an extended family who not only helps, but which takes great delight in maximizing the assets and participating in the delivery of the donor’s assets to the College.”

Fred T. Griffin, 95, of Batesville, a 1933 Lyon alumnus, died Sept. 22, 2006, at his home.

At the University of Oklahoma, Griffin taught physics as a student teacher and taught in public schools for a time. He had doctorate degrees in Physics, Ornithology and Anthropology.

He received an honorary doctorate at Lyon College in 1995 for his accomplishments in radar suppressant devices. A talented scientist and engineer, he parlayed a lifelong fascination with electronics technology into a career of service to the U.S. Navy and to his country.

Griffin was also associated with the physics department at Harvard University.

Inducted into the armed forces in 1942, he was transferred to the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., in 1944, where he spent the next 31 years engaged in research on radar technology and

its military applications. His specialty was radar-jamming devices that would interfere with communication signals sent by enemy vessels.

One of the patents he had received was for the Wide Band Noise Generator on Oct. 17, 1967, which is still in use today.

He was also fluent in several languages and frequently served as an interpreter for visiting technical dignitaries from France. He also spoke German and understood some Russian. An avid bird watcher, Griffin loved to hike and was a cyclist. He was also an artist and won several awards for his paintings.

Anne Griffin Moore, Fred’s second cousin, said it never occurred to her to object to Fred’s desire to see his donations awarded to Lyon College.

“It was his money, he earned it,” she said. “It was his choice as to what to do with it. We just wanted to make sure his wishes came to pass.” Lyon President Dr. Walter Roettger said Griffin’s assertion that he was just an "old cotton sharecropper" was true but vastly incomplete.

“Professionally and intellectually, he was a gifted physicist who made his mark in radar and electronic countermeasures and knew personally a number of the 20th century’s greatest scientists,” Roettger said.

His interests were amazingly broad and he loved his alma mater and his teachers, Roettger added.

“We'll miss him, but we have the satisfaction of knowing that his love of learning and his interest in students will live on through his bequest,” he said.