Couple's bequest benefits projects

The couple created a family trust that provided $360,000 in gifts to YSU.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- By all accounts, George M. and Helen L. Kohut had a lifelong interest in education.
George was a teacher and coach and Helen was involved primarily in social work and school counseling, so it was no surprise that they were prepared to make a long-term commitment to the profession they loved.
Their lives were cut short when they were killed in an automobile crash in April 2003, but their legacy will live on at Youngstown State University.
The Kohuts were living in Virginia at the time of their deaths, but George grew up in western Pennsylvania and attended YSU for a year in the early 1940s before he entered the military in World War II.
He didn't return to YSU after he was discharged but chose to enroll at the University of Pittsburgh, where he played football and earned both bachelor's and master's degrees. He was a Fulbright Scholar and taught school in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Helen had degrees from Hartwick College and the University of Pittsburgh. She is credited with helping to develop one of the first Head Start programs in the country.
Created family trust
The Kohuts came to YSU for a visit in the 1990s, spending a homecoming weekend here, said Paul McFadden, YSU's chief development officer.
The depth of their fondness for YSU was realized when, in 1996, they created a family trust that named the university as a benefactor, McFadden said.
The result was a $360,000 unrestricted gift to YSU, he said.
When unrestricted funds come to the university in this fashion, YSU contacts surviving family members to ask about specific fields of interest that should get the money.
The university contacted the Kohuts' niece, Marlene Ogle of Pittsburgh, and suggested six or seven possible choices, McFadden recalled.
Citing the Kohuts' interest in education, sports and history, she picked the Youngstown Early College program, the YSU athletic department and the historic Wick-Pollock Inn restoration project to be the recipients, he said.
Recipients
Early College, a joint effort between YSU and Youngstown city schools that has high school students attending classes at the university, got a $100,000 endowment that will provide revenue of about $5,000 a year for the program.
The athletic department also got a $100,000 endowment to create the George M. and Helen L. Kohut Memorial Scholarship that will also provide about $5,000 a year.
The Wick-Pollock project received $160,000. This historic landmark is owned by YSU and has been vacant since 1998. The university plans to restore it.
The Youngstown school board, noting the gift was the largest that the Early College program has received, invited Marlene Ogle to a recent board meeting where she was presented with a certificate of appreciation in recognition of her family's generosity.
"I wish you great success with the program. This is really what they were all about," Ogle told school officials, referring to the Kohuts' interest in education.
The Kohuts were longtime donors to, among others, the University of Pittsburgh and the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University.
Their family trust also benefited both institutions.
gwin@vindy.com