UNIQUE GIFTS
Ronald Barnes
Ronald and Pamela Barnes fund first scholarship for reservists
IU alumnus Ronald Barnes and his wife, Pamela, committed a gift to support scholarships for undergraduate students at IU Southeast who have a minimum GPA of 3.0 on 4.0 scale and have been serving in the reserves in the U.S. Army, Navy, Airforce or Marines for at least three years. The Colonel Ronald L. and Pamela D. Barnes Scholarship is renewable and the first scholarship at IU Southeast solely for reservists.
Ronald Barnes is a retired Army colonel, spending 32 years in active and reserve status with the Army. He earned a Bachelor of Science in business from Indiana University in 1972 and became a CPA in 1975. He is licensed to practice in Indiana and Kentucky. He is also a member of IU Southeast’s Board of Advisors.
Barbara Maxwell helps fund service learning trip for IU Southeast students
Former IU Southeast student, Barbara Maxwell recently committed a gift to support IU Southeast nursing students and the IU Southeast Music Education Fund.
Maxwell was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1936, and passed away in April of 2019.
Maxwell honorably served her country for thirty years in the U.S. Public Health Service branch of the military and retired in 1994 as a captain. After retirement, Maxwell settled in Clark County, Indiana where she joined First Christian Church of Jeffersonville and set out to make a difference in our community. During her 25 years in the community, Barbara dedicated thousands of hours to volunteer work and was honored by receiving the Golden Hoosier Award in 2017. She was active in many organizations that provided multiple services for the citizens in the Southern Indiana community.
Maxwell had a passion for education. She was a lifelong learner, having taken classes at IU Southeast, IU East, IUPUI, IU Bloomington and at any other place she found interesting. Part of her gift will support IU Southeast service learning trips to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, one of the most underserved populations in the U.S. These trips enable nursing students to build crucial health promotion and health education skills and provide community health and education to the Lakota Sioux tribe.
Barbara Maxwell
Bronze statue of Lewis and Clark
Lewis and Clark handshake bronze donated to IU Southeast
A statue commemorating the handshake of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark was donated to IU Southeast in 2016.
The statue, displayed in the IU Southeast library, is a 1/5-scale model of the life-size statue that stands at the entrance of the Falls of the Ohio State Park visitor’s center in Clarksville, Ind. It was near this spot that the two explorers met and launched their famed expedition.
Both bronzes are the work of the late Montana sculptor and history aficionado Carol Grende.
The statue’s owner, Phyllis Yeager, made it available to Claudia Crump, co-founder of the IU Southeast Center for Cultural Resources (CCR), to ensure that it remain in the area. The CCR has worked closely with the Indiana Lewis and Clark Commission for many years, sharing its vision and supporting pedagogical initiatives that raise awareness of Lewis and Clark among the region’s social studies teachers and their students. As a token of appreciation for the support it has received from the university, the library and the School of Education, the CCR resolved to donate the statue to IU Southeast for permanent display.
Wonderland Way: Permanent art exhibit with local ties
In 2014, a New Albany couple pledged more than 50 works of art to IU Southeast to be part of a permanent exhibit featuring work by regional artists.
The James L. Russell Wonderland Way Collection is now housed at the Paul W. Ogle Cultural & Community Center at IU Southeast.
The collection is named in honor of James L. Russell (1872-1937), a New Albany artist, who founded the Wonderland Way Art Club in 1906. Russell’s decorating and framing shop in downtown New Albany became an influential gathering place for regional artists to study and discuss art. More than 300 artists, living in or near New Albany, became known collectively known as the “Wonderland Way artists” after being inspired by a stretch of roads from Ohio to Illinois known as the “Wonderland Way.”
Kathy Smith, granddaughter of James L. Russell, and her husband, Don Smith, desired that a permanent collection of works by Wonderland Way artists be available for the benefit of the region, and pledged more than 50 pieces of Wonderland Way art from their personal collection.
Don and Kathy Smith
Sculptural wood art
IU Southeast gains four works of art valued at almost $10,000
Susan Zepeda and Fred Seifer donated three works of sculptural wood art by artist John McNaughton collectively valued at $5,900 and one abstract kinetic wood sculpture by artist Mark A. Wallis valued at $3,800.
Mark A. Wallis has lived and worked in Indiana for 31 years and has been creating freestanding kinetic sculptures for over 20 years. His work is located in many private and public collections. His sculpture, “Caught Between Opposing Ideas,” is a tall kinetic, predominately wood sculpture with a central “stem” on which balances a moving arm.
John McNaughton taught woodworking, sculpture and drawing at the University of Southern Indiana for over 35 years before retiring. He was awarded two National Endowment for the Arts awards, and today his art furniture and sculptures reside in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the White House. McNaughton’s sculptures include a painted table affixed with an intentionally cracked teapot and teacup, a blonde wood table with a hand-carved rose “blooming” out of the top and a blonde wood sculptural form forming an organic “cage” around a small table-like form with a pink-topped rose blooming out of it.
All four of the sculptures will be on display at the Paul W. Ogle Cultural & Community Center.
IU Southeast Student Emergency Assistance Fund receives generous response
The IU Southeast Student Emergency Assistance Fund was created to provide emergency financial assistance for students at IU Southeast who have encountered unforeseen financial hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic or other unexpected circumstances that would prohibit them from pursuing their education without additional financial support. A scholarship committee at IU Southeast determines the award amounts and recipients of the fund.
IU Southeast alumni, friends, faculty and staff opened their hearts and gave generously. In fact, with over 55 contributions, IU Southeast initially had the largest response in terms of total dollars received, and more continue to come in.
Since April of this year, over 1600 students have received emergency assistance through IU Southeast.
For more information about the Student Emergency Assistance Fund and to donate, visit www.ius.edu/student-emergency-fund.
IU Southeast students walking on campus