Wichita State University receives $1 million gift

[patyrn]

"Wichita State University receives $1 million gift from couple's estate"
by Becky Tanner, The Wichita Eagle

Opal Gaines was a schoolteacher, a Boeing aircraft worker, and an accountant for her husband's businesses.  Keith Gaines was a World War II sailor who was at Iwo Jima when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed.  When he returned to Kansas after the war, he owned service stations, a car wash, and rental homes in Wichita.

The couple, now both deceased, recently left a $1 million gift from their estate to the Wichita State University Foundation which has now been established into two scholarship funds--one for athletics and another for academics. Each scholarship fund is to begin the 2011-2012 year.  The scholarships will be awarded each year to several students, said Mike Lamb, WSU Foundation Vice-President for Planned Giving.

While still living, the pair helped support various athletic programs at the university including improvements at the media center in the Charles Koch Arena and the purchase of strength and conditioning equipment.

(Keith Gaines grew up in Howard and was a 1931 graduate of Howard High School.  His wife, Opal Moore Gaines, was born in Piedmont.)