Ralph and Orlene Beeson
"We hope to help Warren Wilson a bit more in our will." This is how Mr. Ralph Beeson described his wife and his intent to build scholarships for need-based aid at the College. He had become concerned about his ability to provide care for his wife and did not know what care he himself might need in the future. But he did have a strong commitment to higher education born out of his father’s life as a college president.
Mr. Beeson, a retired insurance executive from Birmingham, Alabama, grew to know and appreciate Warren Wilson College through Algie Sutton, a 1925 graduate of the Asheville Farm School and fellow businessman in Birmingham. The Beesons told Algie and Ben Holden, then President of the College, how blessed they felt to be able to make philanthropic gifts. As they reached the limits of their ability to give during their lifetime, the Beesons planed to make bequests to the institutions they had come to know and love over their lifetime. While there are many ways to make a "planned gift," the Beesons did not overlook this simplest of ways. A bequest allowed them to make sure that each of their needs would be provided for, but that their wishes would be clear after they were gone.
Their gift established an endowed scholarship fund from which earnings are used each year to provide student aid. The College has a number of such funds in its endowment; the minimum gift needed to establish a named fund is $25,000. As a result of the Beeson’s bequest, Warren Wilson has been able to award the Ralph and Orlene Beeson Scholarship for over 15 years, providing over $750,000 in that time to students who might not have been able to attend the College otherwise.