Meet Our Donors - Hicks Family

Hicks family found rewards in planned giving

At a Hicks family reunion are (from left) Doin Hicks, Ernestine Hicks Harrison, Roy Hicks and Basil Hicks.

(Editor’s Note: Dr. Doin Hicks ’53 delivered the following remarks at the Club 50 inaugural luncheon October 23 at this year’s LyonFest. We wanted to share his remarks because they provide an eloquent explanation of the benefits of planned giving.)

By Dr. Doin Hicks ’53

Each of us left Lyon with a quality college experience and having grown in a number of significant ways. For this we were deeply indebted. We have repaid much of that debt through our lives of productive work and service and, for most of us, sharing a bit of our financial resources with Lyon.

Though Lyon’s financial status is a far cry from the hand-to-mouth existence it was experiencing during our college days, balancing the budget remains a crucial and ever-present task. The college and its students continue to have many of the same needs for resources as those that were experienced during our days here.

I would like to remind you of a way to expand your financial support to Lyon and do so through a process that is both very satisfying and not too demanding on your wallet at any one time. That is simply through the establishment of a family scholarship fund in the name of, and with the participation of, a group of family members. It can start small and you will be surprised how many opportunities you will have to promote its growth. Let me tell you a bit about the Hicks Family experience in this regard.

A few years ago my brother Basil, a Lyon graduate of 1940, and his wife Dale decided that they would use some resources they had accumulated to increase their usual support of Lyon. They decided to start a scholarship fund in their name so they could see some immediate results and perhaps add to the fund as a part of their estate planning.

When I was told of this I thought, “Gee, this kind of thing really is something that my wife Wanda and I should be considering,” so we discussed it and thought about how we might be able to do something more than our small annual gift. The subject kept coming up in family discussions and we talked about our parents’ great love of education and how they gave us every support they possibly could, though little of that support was monetary. It became clear that honoring them in some way would be the appropriate thing to do.

Basil and Dale participated in some of these discussions and it was their suggestion that we combine our resources as a family and they would ask for a change in the name of their fund to one in memory of our parents. The fund would be named the Clyde and Delpha Beasley Hicks Endowed Scholarship. So, they did, and we did. We now have several family members contributing to the fund on an annual basis and are hopeful that the fund will be included in family member estate plans.

My wife Wanda, whom many of you knew, was a 1953 Lyon graduate. Upon her death five months ago I suggested to family and friends that an appropriate gesture for those who wished to do something very special in her memory might be to make a gift to our family scholarship fund at Lyon. To date almost 50 gifts have been made in her memory. This has added nicely to the fund balance and also has called the fund to the attention of numerous extended family members who, we hope, may give to the fund in the future. I would hasten to add that the death of a loved one is only one occasion to promote memorial gifts. There are numerous happy occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries for which such gifts are appropriate.

You may think that your family would not be able to initiate a fund at a level that would provide any significant amount of scholarship aid. I respectfully suggest that you probably are wrong. Most Lyon students receive financial aid. This aid may be primarily in the form of a low interest loan but bolstering that aid package by even small levels of scholarship support could bring it within a family’s resource base.

Let me tell you about one Lyon student whose college career was pulled back from the cliff on more than one occasion by small amounts of scholarship aid. That student was yours truly.

During my four years at Lyon I received some scholarship help on several occasions. The most I ever received was $100 (which might be more like $1,000 in today’s dollars).

I recall one occasion near the end of my sophomore year in which I was behind in my tuition payments (you could go to school on the installment plan in those days, with the college as your banker). The Business Office was on my case pretty heavy so I decided to go to the Financial Aid Office and plead my case. You may know that at that time the Financial Aid Officer and the President was one and the same person.

President Spragins kindly listened to my sad story as I told him that it looked like I would have to drop out of school at the end of the semester as my current part-time jobs were not adequate to resolve my debt. We talked further as he shuffled through some papers on his desk, after which he handed me a check. He said “take this to the business office and see if this will get them off your back.” It was a $50 check, which I presume had come in the mail that day from a donor. I ran, not walked, to the Business Office. By the end of that summer I was debt free and ready to start another installment plan. This was not the last of my close calls and although I was resourceful in my own quest for paying jobs, somehow Lyon and its supporters were always there for me when my own well was dry.

Wanda and I were classmates and I guess I envied her a bit because she had more scholarship aid than me and wasn’t quite so dependent on success in chasing after part-time jobs. As you know, this year’s Lyon Fest celebrates the 50th anniversary of the move from downtown to this campus. You may also know that six years prior to the move, in the fall of 1948, the College purchased this property, consisting of 100 acres and three buildings, from the Masonic Lodge. The price was $35,000, but also included an agreement to provide two tuition scholarships each year for the ensuing 20 years to students who were nominated by the Lodge. Wanda was one of the first recipients of that scholarship program. She had attended Arkansas A&M. her freshman year and her father sold 20 acres from the family farm to pay her tuition. It became obvious that if this process continued the farm would be gone by the time her education was complete. Well, the scholarship not only provided her an outstanding college experience but you might say it saved the family farm. I might add that after 50 years the farm is still in the family, owned by one of the grandchildren and growing timber instead of cotton and corn.

Our family scholarship fund has grown from Basil and Dale’s initial gift a few years ago of about $15,000 to its current level exceeding $100,000. I have an expectation that over the next five to ten years it could achieve significant additional growth but, in any event, it will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. It is a source of great satisfaction to our immediate family and to me to be able to promote the fund to our extended family, which is large and far-flung. I do this in large part by a family newsletter that I started about ten years ago to promote our family reunions, which occur every three years in Springfield, Missouri. This July our reunion had a record attendance of 103 persons representing about 35 family units.

Last spring, with help from brothers Basil and Roy, we prepared and distributed a special edition of the newsletter in the form of a three-page brochure highlighting the Hicks family history and legacy that led to the establishment of our family scholarship fund. Our extended family members have many other causes and charities to which they are committed and which compete for every dollar they give. Even among my parents’ 19 grandchildren are graduates of seven different Presbyterian Church-affiliated colleges and that doesn’t include any of the ten who are of the Catholic faith. We will make sure, however, that our family scholarship fund gets its fair share of air play.

It is especially rewarding to reflect on the probability that our family scholarship fund will continue to honor and add to our parents’ legacy and over the years will provide that sometimes small financial difference for a number of deserving students that allows them to have the Lyon experience as opposed to some lesser college experience or perhaps no college at all.

I urge you to think seriously of a family scholarship fund as a way of continuing your support of Lyon in a collaborative way and one that is affordable. You don’t have to be wealthy to do this. Think about it, then just do it.