Wednesday Hockaday School grad Lyda Hunt Hill gave back to her school two-fold. Originally, school officials were feeling rather heady about the fact that she was going to give $10 million to their fundraising efforts.They even arranged to have Lyda make the announcement at a assembly.
When they told her that this was the third largest gift in Hockaday history, Lyda had second thoughts. She doesn’t like coming second or third. At the announcement, she surprised all by doubling the gift to a whopping $20 million.
According to Hockaday headmistress Jeanne Whiteman, the $20 million gift is —
“the largest single gift from a living alumna among independent girls’ schools in the nation, according to the National Association of Independent Schools. The significance of this gift is not only its staggering generosity; more importantly, it indicates that Hockaday’s Centennial Campaign will be positioned by and led by the people who have made Hockaday great — our alumnae.”
Jeanne also noted that Lyda’s “tenure at Hockaday was marked by early acumen in mathematics and polite distaste for the classroom.”
Ironically, this gal who had a “polite distate for the classroom” has designated that half of her gift will go to the construction of new classrooms and research space for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The other $10 million will go for faculty and program support.
Very well done, Lyda.
Rawlins Gilliland says
Well however you slice & dice it~~ it’s a great thing to see ANY school receiving good news instead of slash & burn layoffs in an era of massive funding cutbacks in public schools here in Texas and across the nation. Texas schools currently are issuing more pink slips than Victoria’s Secret as sale time. I know that this is a marvelous thing for Hockaday. I salute Lyda Hunt Hill & Hockaday alike. Congrats.