Emma and Frank McBride
The McBride Scholarship will benefit students from Kansas.
For most of us, our childhood lessons and experiences have a great impact on our choices and priorities later in life. Frank and Emma McBride are no exception.
Both grew up on farms during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, and even through those hard times, each of their parents, though limited in their own education, stressed higher education for their children.
“We carried that belief in higher education forward with our four children, all KU graduates and more,” Frank McBride said.
The McBrides, of Salina, Kan., have chosen to help other young people who might be going through hard times. Their gift to KU Endowment, made in part through the transfer of an IRA, will create the Emma P. and Frank J. McBride Scholarship for the KU School of Education.
Emma received her bachelor’s degree from the School of Education in 1948 and went on to teach at Clay County Community High School in Clay Center, Kan. Frank entered the U.S. Army Air Corps out of high school and served in Italy. He later earned a bachelor’s degree in business, with a major in accounting, from Kansas State University. The couple moved to Salina, where Frank became a partner in a local grain elevator operation and Emma taught at Brown Mackie School of Business.
Part of the reason the McBrides decided to give when they did was to take advantage of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, a law that allows taxpayers 70½ or older to make gifts to charitable organizations directly from their IRAs. Under the law, they were able to receive a tax exemption while contributing funds to an organization they greatly wanted to support. Unless the Act is extended, these provisions will expire Dec. 31, 2007.
“Our own experience has revealed to us that there has been and will always be a need for assistance to some, and we are doing this as a way of giving back for the help and encouragement we received as students,” Frank said.
The McBride Scholarship will provide support for any deserving Kansas student in the School of Education.