Inspiration generates multiple benefits through gift annuities

When friends and alumni of FHSU are inspired they have a tendency to return the favor. Such is the case with Betty Marshall and Gene and Jo Ann Fleharty whose recent contributions to FHSU, in the form of charitable gift annuities (CGAs), were inspired by those with whom they worked most closely while at FHSU.

For Betty Marshall, inspiration came in the form of George Sternberg. Marshall, who attended FHSU in the late 1940’s, never completed her degree in order that her husband completed his. “We called it getting our PhT degree -- putting hubby through,” explained Marshall. Marshall did ultimately work as a secretary for the Psychology Department for many years on the third floor of McCartney Hall. She often arrived in the mornings before the office opened. “Mr. Sternberg was always there in his workshop assembling a fossil or piecing together shards of a tooth. It was such a wonderfully educational experience it made me wish I could go back to school and major in paleontology or geology,” Marshall said. As Marshall did her estate planning, she did not forget all she had learned from Sternberg, and she wanted to help provide for the future of the museum that now bears his name. Marshall did not want to wait, however, for her gift to benefit the museum, and she saw certain tax advantages by making a gift now through a gift annuity of appreciated assets. “It makes me feel proud to be able to support an organization and a man that I felt so strongly about,” Marshall said.

Gene and Jo Ann Fleharty arrived in Hays in 1962. Gene had an opportunity to share his expertise at a number of institutions, but settled on FHSU because of a thriving biology department under the leadership of Dr. Gerald Tomanek. “What I found particularly attractive at Fort Hays State in biology was the graduate program. Dr. Albertson, then Jerry Tomanek, and a great many faculty at that time were involved in graduate research,” said Fleharty. It led the Flehartys to establish a graduate assistantship upon Gene’s retirement. The last three years have seen an increase to two sponsored assistantships per year. The intent of establishing a gift annuity to fund the graduate assistantships was to ensure their availability for years to come. “You can put it in your will, but there’s no guarantee that the university would ever receive the support for the assistantship in the event the money would get used before then. We thought that one way to guarantee our intent would be to establish a gift annuity,” Fleharty said.

For each story of inspiration at FHSU there are countless others that have yet to be honored and yet to be told. The FHSU Foundation is here to help honor those whose actions and encouragement was so vast it broke the limits of the classroom, the campus, and even the bounds of time. These gifts began as a seed of inspiration decades ago and will benefit students for decades to come. For more information about gift annuities go to fhsugift.org or call Brad Botz, FHSU Foundation Director of Planned Giving, at (785) 628-5888.