As the Imagine Tomorrow campaign enters its final weeks, we share these stories of recent donors to illustrate how and why they got involved and what it means to them.

Endowment

Muriel Copp ’57 – Red Wing

What finer posthumous tribute could anyone receive than a friend’s out-loud laughter at your memory 60 years later — a friend who, upon receiving your unexpected bequest, decides to endow a scholarship in your name at your shared alma mater?

The surviving friend in this case is Muriel Copp. Her departed friend is Jennifer Eddy, who passed in 2014 without survivors after a lengthy teaching career, primarily at the University of Wisconsin-Baraboo. Their alma mater: Bemidji State.

Copp, a retired teacher who grew up in Thief River Falls, made sure Eddy lives on through promising BSU students who receive the Jennifer Jane Eddy Chemistry Scholarship.

“I just thought there should be something in her name at Bemidji State because she did all of her undergraduate work there, as well as graduate,” she said.

Copp’s memories of Eddy come fast and furious, recalling the outrageous fun and high adventure they shared as fellow students and teachers.

“We met on the first day at Bemidji State in a registration line,” Copp said of Eddy, who was from Park Rapids. “She was kind of a wonderment to me because she was standing there in a buckskin jacket made out of a deer she had shot.”

Copp said that after allergies thwarted Eddy’s original goal of research, she became a dedicated and demanding teacher who helped many grateful students.

Planned Giving

Duane ’66 and Celeste (Jacobson) ’65 Sperl – Puyallup, Wash.

Duane and Celeste Sperl, who will celebrate 50 years of marriage in August, cherish the years at BSU where they found each other and received an outstanding education.

Having made “sporadic” gifts to Bemidji State in the past, the Sperls recently made unrestricted planned gifts and are considering a recurring annual gift as well, drawing on retirement fund disbursements.

Celeste, from Greenbush, and Duane, from New Ulm, briefly taught in St .Cloud-area junior highs before the Army draft took them to Germany. They subsequently made Washington State their home, both earning master’s degrees from Pacific Lutheran University. Duane has worked in insurance, and Celeste became a school counselor. They have a son and daughter.

The couple recalls several outstanding teachers, including biology professor Dr. Evan Hazard, who Celeste said regularly invited students to supper at his home, and history professor Eugene Mammenga, whom Duane recalls as an “incredible, incredible instructor,” adding, “I’ll remember him forever and ever.”

Athletic Endowment

Sue and Steve Engel – Bemidji

Becoming hockey season ticket holders was what first hooked Sue and Steve Engel to Bemidji State after they moved to Bemidji 38 years ago. She is a Granite Falls native who graduated from Minnesota State Moorhead, and he is from Nicollet and graduated from Gustavus Adolpus College.

“The year we started going was the year they went 31-0, so that helped us get on the bandwagon,” Sue said, referring to the team’s winning streak in 1968-69.

The Engels’ appreciation for all things BSU has only grown through the years.

They decided to endow men’s hockey scholarships out of loyalty to a program that’s given them years of enjoyment, Sue said, and because they appreciate the extra demands placed on student-athletes.

“They have a pretty hard road in front of them,” she said. “They’re trying to keep their grades and working to graduate.”

Sue, who is sales and marketing director for First National Bank in Bemidji, is a past board member for the Beaver Pride athletic boosters group. She was a 2014 John S. Glas Honorary Letter recipient in 2014 and has twice chaired the gift committee for the Green & White dinner and auction.

Annual Giving

Fred Baker ’61 – Bismarck, N.D.

When Fred Baker graduated from high school on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, he thought the Air Force would help him decide what to do in life.

Vehemently opposed, his father sought advice from the local school superintendent, who happened to be a proud Bemidji State graduate. The men agreed that’s where Baker belonged.

The superintendent used his BSU connections to find a spot for Baker ’61, who’d barely been out of the county.

“I was on a tractor cutting hay when my father came over the hill and said, ‘You’re going to Bemidji State and that’s a good school,” he recalled from his home in Bismarck, N.D. “I sat back down on my tractor wondering where in the hell Bemidji was and what it was.”

Baker thrived at Bemidji State, becoming captain of the brand new cross-country team, joining the band and glee club and serving as associate editor of the Northern Student newspaper.

He and his wife, Marie, make annual gifts to BSU, grateful for how it prepared him to succeed in public health and health care administration.

“It didn’t have a lot of frills; it didn’t have all kinds of majors and that kind of thing,” he said, “but what they had I think they provided with outstanding quality. I got a really good education.”

Endowment

Julie (Hartman) Becker ’77 – North Oaks

Julie Becker chose Bemidji State for the reasons downstate students always have —a strong program in her desired major and a location
far enough from home to establish her independence.

“I got a job that first fall after I graduated,” she said. “I felt like it was very good preparation.”

The Austin native carried her elementary education degree into a 22-year teaching career before staying home during her three children’s busy teen years. She’s back helping with the Reading Buddies program in Mounds View and volunteers at the Ronald McDonald classroom in Minneapolis.

Returning to BSU last fall to participate in Alumni Leaders in the Classroom motivated Becker ’77 to do something she’d long intended: contribute financially to the university and its students.

She and her husband endowed the Scott and Julie Becker Education Scholarship.

“I always wanted to become more involved and give something back to the university,” Becker said. “I was just grateful for the education I received, and I hope it will help somebody else.”