For Immediate Release
Contact:
Leslie Weddell
(719) 389-6038
Leslie.Weddell@ColoradoCollege.edu
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Nov. 2, 2009 – Colorado College has received more than $2.3 million from the James W. Austin Charitable Remainder Unitrust, which will go toward a scholarship fund providing unrestricted financial aid.
The donation is the single largest life income gift in the history of Colorado College. James W. Austin graduated in 1929 from Colorado College with a degree in geology.
The funds will establish the James W. and Esther Austin Scholarship Fund, in memory of Austin and his wife. The gift to fund the Unitrust was originally made in 1993. Austin received monthly payments from his Unitrust until his death in 1997. Payments then went to two successor beneficiaries, the second of whom died in August 2009. The remainder of the Unitrust will now go to CC to establish the scholarship fund.
Austin was a pilot in WWII serving as chief of Staff Air Transport Command, China, and then went to work in the airline business with Capital Airlines, where he instituted the nation’s first air coach service. He later became president and chairman of Northeast Airlines. Upon retiring from the airline business, he became vice president of Hughes Hotel Properties and Hughes Tool Co., and a consultant with Hughes Airwest and the Summa Corporation.
Austin was an alumni trustee at Colorado College from 1958-60. He was awarded Colorado College’s Louis Benezet Award in 1991 for outstanding professional achievements.
About Colorado College
Colorado College is a nationally prominent, four-year liberal arts college that was founded in Colorado Springs in 1874. The college operates on the innovative Block Plan, in which its 1,975 undergraduate students study one course at a time in intensive 3½-week blocks. The college also offers a master of arts in teaching degree. For more information, visit www.ColoradoCollege.edu <http://www.ColoradoCollege.edu>