Originally Posted by
Hammersmith
It's a bit interesting. Sheila doesn't have a direct connection, but Robert has some very strong indirect connections. His mother worked at NDSU for a couple decades. His uncle was Bill Euren, one of NDSU's long-serving band directors. Robert isn't musical, but many of his family members are, and I believe his son is currently in the NDSU music program in some capacity(judging from the cheering from a section of the audience when Robert brought him up). Robert mentioned going door to door with his mother around town to get support to change NDSU's name from NDAC to NDSC(which would later become NDSU). He also mentioned that he grew up in one of the houses on 12th Ave, just across from the library.
I don't know if he actually attended NDSU himself, but he left for California when he was a young adult(either after HS or college) and has lived his entire life out there. Sheila grew up in Montana and has also lived almost her entire adult life in CA. Though they live in CA, you get the sense that they're fairly conservative(at least for CA). Robert mentioned that they used to have a CA university included in their estate planning, but they removed it a few years ago and added that share of their estate to the part they were giving to NDSU. That may explain why their donation jumped from <$30M to $75M. Suck for them but nice for us.
Re: In Our Hands - 2019-2022 Capital Fundraising Campaign
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