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ALUMNA LEAVES BLUFFTON $600,000 ESTATE GIFT

Virginia Fisher was a 1941 graduate of Bluffton College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in foreign language with a major in Latin and a minor in art.

She went on to teach art for 34 years in Lima and Elida schools and, in 1997, to marry Walter White, a Lima attorney and public servant who died in 2007.

But she never forgot Bluffton, as evidenced by her estate gift of $600,000 to the university—the second largest such gift in Bluffton’s history. The gift will aid current and future Bluffton students through an endowed scholarship—established in her memory and in memory of her parents, Nina and Harold Fisher—and support for the university’s planned Health and Fitness Education Center.

The endowed scholarship is the second one created through her, and her husband’s, generosity. The Virginia Fisher White and Walter L. White Scholarship was established last year with proceeds from a charitable gift annuity that had been established by the Whites. First preference for that scholarship goes to a student with a major in art or education.

"Bluffton deeply appreciates the generosity and foresight of alumni and friends like Virginia and Walter White who provide for the university’s programs and students in their charitable estate plans," said Dr. Hans Houshower, Bluffton’s vice president for advancement.

Virginia Fisher White, who died Sept. 8, 2009, was involved at Bluffton as a student as well. Her memberships included the Witmarsum newspaper staff as a freshman and senior; Art Club as a freshman; and Choral Society and Gospel Team as a senior. She was also employed her junior and senior years as a student librarian. She returned to take one art course each in the summers of 1956 and 1958.

Her lifelong interest in art was also evident through her membership in the Art Study Council and Council for the Arts, both in Lima; the Lima Art Association; and the Toledo Museum of Art.

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Bluffton public relations, 4/28/11