FORT SMITH -- Donations totaling $750,000 from the estate of former City Administrator Ray Gosack are going to the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
"Ray Gosack, he's here forever," said Claude Legris, director of the Fort Smith Advertising and Promotion Commission, after a ceremony last week 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 Master 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 members and officials from both universities and from the city of Fort Smith were among the approximately 30 people who attended a 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.
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.
State Desk on 06/16/2017