Philanthropist Hallie Ford dies at 102
Friday, June 8, 2007 1:51 PM PDT
MONMOUTH (AP) — Philanthropist Hallie Ford, who last month made the largest arts donation in Oregon history, has died at age 102.
Her family said that she died Monday at an assisted living facility in Monmouth after a brief illness.
The widow of timber entrepreneur Kenneth Ford, she co-founded the Ford Family Foundation which donated heavily to schools and communities in Oregon and in her native Oklahoma.
The foundation gave $15 million to the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland in late May. The previous record was a $6 million donation to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.
In 1996, Ford received the Governor’s Arts Award for Arts Patronage and Support of Arts Scholarship Programs.
The namesake for Willamette University’s Hallie Ford Museum of Art, her gifts supported such projects as Stayton’s Habitat for Humanity home, Independence’s Riverview Park Amphitheater fountain and the planned Ash Creek Trail interpretive center.
The foundation’s Ford Opportunity Scholarship Program benefits single parents who can’t afford college.
She put herself through East Central University in Ada, Okla., earning a bachelor’s degree and teaching certificate.
She moved to the Lebanon area and married Kenneth Ford, then moved with him to the Roseburg area where she helped develop the Roseburg Lumber Co., now Roseburg Forest Products.
During the past 33 years she gave $14 million to Willamette University, most recently $8 million to pay for half of the new 46,000-square-foot academic building, Ford Hall, scheduled to open in 2010.
‘‘Hallie joined the Willamette Board of Trustees in 1975 and became a life member in 1996, the same year we presented her with an honorary degree,’’ Willamette President M. Lee Pelton noted.
‘‘Hallie has left a significant legacy at Willamette.’’
