1/28/04

AUBURN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TO BENEFIT FROM STEPHENS ENDOWMENT

AUBURN -- The foresight and planning of a former teacher will ensure the education of many Auburn University students, thanks to her posthumous $2.1 million gift to the university.

A bequest from the estate of Mary Simpson Stephens provides approximately $2.1 million to endow scholarships for students who demonstrate financial need. The Miles and Mary Stephens Endowment for Scholarships is named in memory of Stephens and her late husband.

"Mrs. Stephens' gift to Auburn University is an inspiration to the Auburn family and to the students who will benefit from her spirit of philanthropy," said Robert McGinnis, AU vice president for development. "This endowment contribution will memorialize her benevolence, and we at Auburn are most grateful."

Stephens died Aug. 22, 2002.

Wes Williams, AU's vice president for student affairs, echoed McGinnis' sentiment about the Stephens family gift.

"This is a wonderful gift from the Stephens family as it will carry on their philosophy of helping students receive an education," said Williams. "There are too many students that are not able to attend college because of financial need and the Stephens scholarship will provide that opportunity for students to attend Auburn University."

Born in Piedmont, S.C., Stephens graduated from Chicora College in Columbia, S.C. She then taught school and was principal of Oak Hill High School in North Carolina before marrying her husband, Miles, in 1937. The couple moved to Auburn in 1945 where she worked in the Registrar's Office at Auburn, then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute. Miles Stephens, a 1927 API graduate and a soil scientist, retired from Auburn in 1965 and died in 1998.

Mrs. Stephens completed her master's of education at Auburn in 1948 and began teaching in 1952, first in Opelika and then at Auburn High School, where she taught business, until her retirement in 1970.

"Mary was a lovely person. She was a genuine Southern lady from South Carolina," said Larkin Radney, Mary Stephens' nephew-in-law and attorney for her estate. "She really loved Auburn -- both the town and the university."

Radney described Stephens as very outgoing and always interested in helping others. "Up until a few months before her death, she read books to the elderly at Wesley Terrace who couldn't see to read," he said. "She was just a grand lady."

Her colleagues at Auburn High School remember Stephens as a happy person.

"She was a very gracious lady and always had a smile on her face," said Virginia Taylor, who taught at Auburn High School with Stephens from 1962 until 1970. "She was never unhappy."

Taylor said education was important to Stephens and she was "not surprised" to learn of the bequest she left to Auburn.

Recipients of the scholarship will be known as the Miles and Mary Stephens Scholars. AU plans to award the scholarships beginning Fall Semester 2004.

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jan04:AU-stephens

CONTACT: Katie M. Wilder, 334/844-2994 or AU Scholarship Office, 334/844-2320.