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Gift offers over $500,000 for Fort Lewis College scholarships
The Fort Lewis College Theatre Department and School of Business Administration will enjoy over $250,000 each for scholarships thanks to the generosity of two FLC alumni.
The FLC Foundation announced the gift from Myrtle and Warren Nord, which adds up to $506,000 in total. The Nords also own property, which will be added to the gift once the property sells. This investment represents one of the largest donations in FLC history.
“I wish Myrtle and Warren were still with us so I could express my gratitude to them for this remarkable gift,” says FLC President Dene Thomas. “They’ve created a legacy at Fort Lewis College that will endure for years to come.”
The Nords both attended Fort Lewis College later in their lives and earned degrees in English in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They lived in the Four Corners area for years and were active in the community. After Warren passed away in the late 1990s, Myrtle moved to Tucson, AZ, and became a prolific writer. She’d been a writer long before that, including authoring a student theatre production during her time at FLC.
It was after Myrtle passed away in 2015 that the College learned of their planned gifts to the Theatre Department and the School of Business Administration.
“It’s gratifying to see Fort Lewis College alumni give back to their alma mater in such an important way,” says Keith Newbold, vice chair of the FLC Foundation. “With this gift, the Nords are investing in the lives of the future FLC students who will walk in their footsteps.”
Mr. Newbold has a personal connection to the Nords, as Mr. Nord taught at Durango High School while Mr. Newbold was a student there. He remembers Mr. Nord coming into class each day sharply dressed in a suit and tie.
“I recall he had daily lesson plans which he retrieved at the beginning of each class from his leather briefcase and placed on the lectern,” he says. “To make his classes more interesting and meaningful to the students, he sometimes gave real-life examples of incidents which occurred at Durango area businesses he owned together with his wife.”
Learn more about the Fort Lewis College Foundation at www.fortlewis.edu/foundation.