Former student leaves MC $1.2M

Woman attended only two years, didn't graduate

Friday, November 17, 2006

MONMOUTH - Monmouth College has received an unrestricted estate gift of $1.2 million from a former student who only attended the college two years, President Mauri Ditzler announced Thursday.

Karol Kluss Manley, a member of the Class of 1949, died in October 2005 in Louisville, Ky., where she had lived for more than 40 years. A native of Peoria, she had been active in Pi Beta Phi at Monmouth College. According to some of her former Pi Phi sisters, she left college in 1947 to get married-something that was fairly common immediately following World War II - but eventually they lost all touch with her. While Manley donated regularly to the college's annual fund, there had been very little personal contact with her until 2001, when in a routine phone call from the college she disclosed her intention to make a bequest.

"Although Mrs. Manley was here but a short time, her experience at Monmouth was apparently significant enough that she decided to include the college in her will," President Ditzler said. "Her low-key, unrestricted bequest demonstrated a quiet confidence in her alma mater, a fact for which we are extremely grateful."

Manley worked as a leaf sorter for Brown and Williamson Tobacco Co. in Louisville for more than 32 years. She had attended the former Bowling Green Business University and was the first woman tobacco buyer in the United States.

According to her attorney, her only surviving relatives were cousins and she had lived alone for many years. She was a docent of the Louisville Zoo and a volunteer for the Kentucky Humane Society. She also was an avid world traveler.