Friday, December 9, President Michael T. Benson hosted the 2012 Holiday Gala to pay tribute to the many generous donors - individuals, businesses and foundations - who have qualified for membership in both the President's Giving Society and the Old Main Society.
The President’s Giving
Society represents alumni and friends who play an ongoing
and vital role in the institution and its success by annually contributing cash
or in-kind gifts of $1,000 or more to the University.
Old
Main Society members symbolize the spirit of devotion and sacrifice that our early
founders demonstrated in constructing our first building – Old Main. These donors are, in a very real sense, this
University’s modern-day founders. This
prestigious gift club at SUU recognizes cumulative lifetime giving to the
university in excess of $50,000 for individuals and $100,000 for organizations.
The newest members of the Old Main Society during 2012, inducted and welcomed into the society that evening were Walter ('51) & Alice Gibson, Maud Trismen Mason, Jerry Grover, Scott Snow, Anthony Stocks, Betty McDonald and June Sewing.
Special tribute was paid to Maud Trismen Mason and Cedar City Corporation for their extraordinary generosity and commitment to SUU.
Maud Trismen Mason has spent her life in search of beauty and has, indeed, lived a life of grace and elegance while, at the same time, remaining unafraid of dirtying her hands in the earth.
Maud Trismen Mason has spent her life in search of beauty and has, indeed, lived a life of grace and elegance while, at the same time, remaining unafraid of dirtying her hands in the earth.
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| Maud Trismen Mason, Keith Mason and President Benson Old Main Society Centurium Circle |
Born in New York City in 1931, she grew in Forest Hills, New
York, and in Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania. Her parents, Frederick and Gladys,
steeped her in the cultural arts with love and guidance, teaching by example. Galleries
and museums were a large part of Maud’s life. When she was six, the family moved
to Winter Park, Florida, her father having purchased an historic 40-acre estate
and its 21-room mansion known to all as The Palms.
As a girl of central Florida, Maud became accomplished at
the piano, and learned from her mother the lessons of nurturing botanicals in
the rich landscape of the family grounds on Lake Osceola. As a student at the
hometown Rollins College, Maud excelled in all subjects and was honored as the
outstanding history student at her 1951 graduation. She would later attend Oberlin
College in Ohio and Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.
For a time, she studied music and managed her husband’s
worldwide career as a concert organist, even unto tuning the mammoth
instruments. In 1954, she became curator of living arts at Rollins College and
further broadened her interests in the arts and in sports. She found her life’s
greatest calling when studying at central Florida’s Maitland Art Research
Studio, creating assemblage art. The Center’s Attilio Banca was the champion of
her work, which was at the forefront of the new movement that used found
objects to compose three-dimensional expressions.
In 1964, her work earned a Gold Medal at the New York World’s
Fair, and in the years that followed, her assemblages were shown in many venues
and were in great demand.
Along the way, she maintained her love of music and accompanied
a number of string quartets, and she built her lifelong love of animals into an
additional career training horses in both English and Western style.
In 2009, Maud and her manager Keith Mason relocated to
nearby Kanarraville and began to immerse themselves in the life of Iron County
and of the University while enjoying their greenhouse filled with Maud’s
tropical gardens, including her well-tended crepe myrtle. Maud and Keith, who
wed in 2011, were pleased to greatly aid in the funding of the Southern Utah
Museum of Art, as they intend to enjoy the work of myriad artists in the new Rocki Alice Gallery in memory of
Frederick D. Trismen. The gallery is named for the German Shepherds that
brought them together.
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| Michal Adams, Nina Barnes, Mayor Joe Burgess and President Benson Old Main Society Gold Medallion |
Some 46 years after Cedar City was founded in 1851, its
citizens labored famously to establish what is now Southern Utah University.
Today, that pioneering spirit continues to succor and to inspire as the rewardingly
symbiotic relationship of this town and its school has continued with unabated success
for 115 years. The history of each is steeped in sacrifice and resolve in a
common goal of building for the future.
From its earliest beginnings when 35 men trekked from
Parowan to settle the area, the town has revered education. Today, with some
30,000 residents within its 20 square miles, that level of reverence has only
deepened.
Cedar City Mayor Joe Burgess has wisely said that without
Southern Utah University, Cedar City would not be Cedar City. Conversely, all
would agree, SUU would not be SUU without Cedar City. That truth is at the
heart of what has cemented a marriage benefitting untold numbers of citizens
and students in a variety of ways.
SUU is honored to be a member of the Cedar City community
and be served by the Cedar City Corporation, which has maintained its enduring
commitment to SUU over many decades and in diverse and momentous instances. Community
leaders have always provided support across a broad range of needs and have
steered public monies to the University and its programs on many mutually-beneficial
fronts, including in support of such important University components as the
Utah Summer Games and the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
The Utah Summer Games, founded in 1986 as a program designed
to bring people to the City and to the University, required great cooperation
between the two, and City representatives were generous in providing not only
numerous playing fields and other venues, but personnel as well. Over the past
26 years, mayors, council members and City managers have done much to put the
Games on sound financial footing.
The world-renowned Utah Shakespeare Festival, too, is among
the most grateful recipients of the generosity and dedication of the City.
Through its 51 years of progressive success, the Festival has ever been able to
count upon the City for support, and Cedar leaders have been unstinting in
their sustenance, including aiding in the construction of the Randall L. Jones
Theatre in the late 1980s and today, in providing Redevelopment Agency monies
toward the new Shakespeare Theatre complex, currently in the funding phase.
Following dinner, guests moved to the Randall L. Jones Theatre for Brad Carroll and Peter Sham's A Christmas Carol On the Air, a hilarious behind-the-scenes story of radio actors and their conflicts as they tell Dickens' tale of Ebenezer Scrooge. The role of Scrooge was played by Utah Shakespeare Festival founder Fred C. Adams.
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| Betty McDonald Old Main Society Level |
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| June Sewing Old Main Society Level |
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| Stuart Jones Vice President for University Advancement |
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| Yuletide Singers Recent SUU Graduates |
