FORT SMITH -- Officials with the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, on Wednesday announced bequests totaling $750,000 from late former city administrator Ray Gosack.
"Ray Gosack, he's here forever," said Claude Legris, director of the Fort Smith Advertising and Promotion Commission, after a ceremony announcing Gosack's gift to the universities' political science programs.
Mark Power, vice chancellor for university advancement at the Fayetteville campus, announced Gosack's gift of $500,000 as the Raymond W. Gosack Masters of Public Administration Endowment.
He said the endowment will help thousands of students in their educational pursuits for years to come.
"I can't think of any other way to perpetuate and continue Ray's legacy of the epitome of servant leadership except for an endowment in his name at the University of Arkansas," said Todd Shields, dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
Gosack earned a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in public administration from the university. He was recognized as the outstanding 1985 graduate of the master's of public administration program.
UAFS Chancellor Paul Beran announced the $250,000 gift from Gosack's estate to the school's political science department.
"Oh, it tickled me to death, because he always was the guy who wanted to help everybody out," Gosack's younger brother Michael Gosack of Greenwood said of his brother's gifts to the universities.
Gosack's family and officials from both universities and from the city of Fort Smith were among the people who attended the brief ceremony in the UAFS campus center.
The faculty and administrators at UAFS are planning how to make the best use of the gift for the long-term benefit of the students, staff and community, Beran said.
The gift has already helped one student. Beran said Keimi Driscoll received $2,000 from the gift, which has allowed her to participate in an internship in Washington. She will research international policies in preparation for a summer summit of the National Conference of State Legislatures' International Division.
'"I'm extremely grateful to Ray Gosack for making this opportunity available to me,'" Beran quoted Driscoll as saying. '"The people I will meet, the experience I will receive and the knowledge I will gain from the entire experience are some things I could never have attained from my own limited resources.'"
Gosack, a Greenwood native, died Oct. 21 at age 58 within weeks of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He retired in August 2015 after serving 4½ years as Fort Smith's city administrator.
Gosack served 20 years with the city: as its administrator, as deputy administrator starting in 1999, and, before that, as administrative assistant in utilities and as acting special project coordinator in the mid-1980s.
NW News on 06/08/2017