Harold H. and Irene W. Smith Honored With Gift to GHS Educational Trust
The sons of Harold H. and Irene W. Smith have proudly made a gift to the Glasgow High School Educational Trust in honor of their parents, pointing out there is hardly a more fitting tribute to Harold and Irene�s memory than supporting the continued education of Glasgow students as they move on to studies at the college level.
As publisher of The Glasgow Courier for nearly a decade before his retirement in 1972, Harold stood for high standards in writing and reporting, and instituted a major modernization of the Courier plant from the old �hot type� method of printing to the photographic-based �offset� lithography printing. Harold was born in a newspaper family in Kansas, and received his degree in journalism from the University of Kansas. He always emphasized to his sons the importance of being well-read as a means to succeed in any profession, and even in his retired years he, along with Irene, volunteered his services regularly to help Glasgow children work on developing their reading skills. Harold brought to Glasgow vast experience in journalism, having previously owned and published newspapers in Colorado (where he met Irene), Nebraska, Idaho, and California, and Irene brought to the Courier her strong skills in organization and business management which she had developed over the years.
Irene also was a life-long musician, and the church life of Glasgow greatly benefited from her accomplished playing of the organ and piano. Harold and Irene both loved American history, and Irene, along with her sons Brad, Spencer, and Barry, became an avid explorer of the Lewis and Clark Trail, studying Lewis and Clark�s journey both in Valley County and elsewhere across the West. Even in her later years when her sight had diminished, Irene was never far from several books on tape, which she listened to regularly. Harold and Irene loved Glasgow and its people, and the gift in their name to the GHS Educational Trust memorializes their goodwill and support of education for a better life.
Whenever the trust receives donations that total $500 or more in honor, recognition, or memory of a particular individual(s), a gift is made to a student or GHS in that person�s name. Donations of $10,000 or more, entitle the donor to an annual naming opportunity in perpetuity.
The Glasgow High School Educational Trust is honored to add the names of Harold H. and Irene W. Smith to its permanent list. The first gift in their memory was given to Vanessa Mattfeldt, an English major with an emphasis in Creative Writing at the University of Montana-Missoula for the Spring 2015 semester.
The generous and grateful spirit of the Smiths and their sons is representative of the trust�s many faithful supporters over the 50 years since its inception. Donations both large and small of cash, stocks, and real estate have grown the corpus to over $4.2 million dollars and enabled the trust to truly become what its founders (alumni of the GHS Class of 1938) envisioned: a significant and effective way to assist GHS graduates in the pursuit of their educational dreams and thereby strengthen the fabric of the community and nation.
To date, the trust has used the interest on the corpus to give 2,030 grants valued over $1.7 million dollars to hundreds of GHS alumni attending schools across the nation in very diverse curricula. Many of these students (89%) have received multiple gifts over their courses of study. Nontraditional fulltime students who may be completing their degrees through correspondence and online courses are given equal consideration if they meet all of the other requirements which are posted along with the application on the trust�s website at www.ghsedutrust.org. All eligible GHS alumni are strongly encouraged to apply. Application deadlines are July 1st and October 15th of each year.
In addition to the awards made to students attending either college or vocational/technical school, the GHS Educational Trust also purchases equipment and programs for GHS which cannot be financed within the school�s regular budget. Every department of GHS has been awarded gifts, which now total $190, 308.33 in value. These gifts benefit all students and the public at large when it attends events at the school or uses its facilities.
