FAYETTEVILLE -- An estate gift valued at more than $1.2 million will support University of Arkansas at Fayetteville libraries, a final tribute to education from three sisters who devoted their lives to helping others learn.
The gift from Agnes Lytton Reagan, Betty Lynn Reagan and Mary Sue Reagan -- all three UA alumnae -- will pay for books, periodicals and digital resources, according to an announcement Tuesday from the university.
In Rogers, the Mary Sue Reagan and Betty Lynn Reagan Elementary School is named after two of the sisters who were schoolteachers for a combined total of more than 90 years.
"They were about as popular a people as you can find in this community," said Gary Townzen, 64, a barber who attended high school government and history classes taught by the sisters.
Told of the gift, Townzen said, "It doesn't surprise me in the least that it had to do with education."
The oldest sister, Agnes Lytton Reagan, left Arkansas for a career in library science, working at the American Library Association in Chicago and as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Agnes Lytton Reagan eventually returned to Arkansas in 1984, according to obituary information. After her sisters had retired from teaching, she joined them as school volunteers in Rogers, according to a report in the Rogers Morning News. Agnes Lytton Reagan died in 2013 at age 99. Her sisters died earlier.
None of the sisters had any children, according to obituary information. Their father, Lytton Reagan, was president and manager of the Rogers Wholesale Grocery Co., according to the Reagan Family Papers collection at the UA library.
The estate gift includes hundreds of books and an antique bookshelf once owned by Elias Boudinot, a renowned attorney and Cherokee leader who lived in the 19th century.
Metro on 07/08/2015