Classmates and family come together to create a scholarship honoring Gil Hargreaves ’71
Gilbert “Gil” Hargreaves ’71 served as president of the Class of 1971, was a member of the Intercollegiate Knights service organization, served on Linfield’s Alumni Leadership Council and co-founded a group of alumni that organize social events under the name Bar West Classic or “BWC.” When Hargreaves died unexpectedly in 2014, his circle of alumni connections came together to honor his legacy.
“Everyone who knew Gil liked him,” BWC co-founder Steve Lathrop ’71 said. “He truly liked to spend time with friends, and beyond that, he genuinely had an interest in their lives. I think those who donated in Gil’s honor saw that he had great pride in Linfield and in being a Linfield grad.”
Nearly $8,000 was donated to create the Gil Hargreaves Alumni Scholarship. In its first year, the annual scholarship helped two students pursue their Linfield education.
But the outpouring of affection for Hargreaves didn’t end there. The gifts kept coming.
In 2017, classmates Glenn Kuhn ’71 and Chuck Humble ’71 decided to make the scholarship permanent. They met with Linfield employees and started a formal fundraising effort to endow a scholarship in Hargreaves’s name.
“When we realized that awarding the memorial scholarship each year depended to some degree on how much had been donated in the prior year, we knew that something had to be done to enable this scholarship to outlast all of us,” Kuhn said.
A handful of key donors were identified and approached to make a commitment to the scholarship. Once half of the goal was reached, a mass outreach effort to classmates began.
“I wasn’t sure we could do this at first,” Humble said. “But it quickly gained momentum. There were no hard sells. People reflected Gil’s generosity of spirit in their giving.”
“Endowments are a powerful way for people to make a lasting impact,” said Joseph Hunter, vice president for university advancement. “Scholarships that rely on annual gifts are variable, so we can’t guarantee continued support to our students. Endowments, however, are perpetual. Only some of the interest or earnings are distributed to fund the scholarship, while the rest is reinvested to help the endowment grow. In this way, an endowed scholarship can help students for generations.”
It takes a minimum of $50,000 to establish an endowed scholarship at Linfield. Through direct peer-to-peer asks as well as crowdfunding opportunities like Linfield’s giving days, the Hargreaves fund started to grow. And unlike some other endowments that are created from gifts from one or two donors, the scholarship honoring Hargreaves included financial contributions from 49 households with gifts ranging from $25 to $5,000.
The Gil Hargreaves Endowed Alumni Scholarship became fully funded in March 2021; a feat achieved over the course of three years from 174 donations.
“It took a village to create this endowed scholarship,” Humble said. “I hope it creates a roadmap and inspires others to consider creating an endowed scholarship for a friend or loved one.
“It makes me feel very proud to have contributed, even in a small way, to Linfield’s future and to show others how they can make a difference. We honored a friend and classmate and helped others who may someday reflect all of Gil’s goodness in their own lives.”
