“Our mother wanted to be a nurse, she wanted to be in the medical profession, she wanted to be able to help people. We felt that we could honor that wish by giving these funds to KU’s School of Nursing to help produce more health care professionals — and she would be a part of it.”
– Herb Looney, architecture ’69
Herb & Ronald Looney
Two brothers created a nursing scholarship in memory of their mother: Herb Looney, San Antonio, a Southwestern Bell retiree, and Ronald Looney, Lenexa, Kan., a telecommunications consultant who attended KU in the mid-1960s. They gave $10,000, with an additional $2,000 match from AT&T, to create the Ida G. Looney scholarship. Ida Looney never had the chance to go to nursing school, but during the last 20 years of her life, she volunteered at Shawnee Mission Medical Center in Lenexa, Kan. Her sons always knew she wanted to be a nurse. After her death, they found her high school yearbook, autographed by classmates who encouraged her to pursue that goal. They then realized the extent of her lifelong dream.