Jewel Minnis Trust Creates UA Honors Scholarship Endowment

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Full-tuition scholarships for students in the Honors College at the University of Arkansas will be provided by an endowment from the Jewel Minnis Trust in Monroe County.

The Minnis Trust, created in 1964 as a bequest by Jewel Minnis of Roe, in southern Monroe County, is providing $200,000 to be matched by funds from the university’s matching gift program, for a total endowment of $400,000.

 The Trust is contributing $40,000 a year for five years to establish the endowment. Investment earnings from the endowment will fund the Jewel Minnis Trust Endowed Honors College Academy Scholarship, with a preference for students in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.

 Dean Greg Weidemann said, “We are honored to participate in the legacy of Jewell Minnis in this manner. The scholarships will provide vital support for students in our honors program.”

 Dave Lee of Clarendon, one of three trustees, said the Minnis Trust has awarded over $2 million in scholarships for students at U of A campuses in Fayetteville, Little Rock, Monticello and Pine Bluff as well as the Medical Sciences campus and the law schools in Little Rock and Fayetteville.

 Trustee J. Baxter Sharp III of Brinkley said, “The matching incentives make this an incredible opportunity. Not only will we be able to continue providing scholarships, but, for students in Fayetteville, we will be able to provide full-tuition through this endowment.”

 Trustee Lehman Fowler of Brinkley said the Trust acquires income from the sale of crops produced on 800 acres of land bequeathed by Jewel Minnis to create the Trust at the time of her death on May 5, 1964.

 “I appreciate Ms. Minnis’s wisdom and generosity more each year as I look at the list of scholarships given,” Fowler said. “The college and Division of Agriculture have helped with the production and marketing of our rice and soybeans on the Jewel Minnis farm, so we believe it is fitting that students in the agriculture college be considered first for these scholarships.”

 Jewel Minnis, who taught third grade in the Brinkley public schools from about 1926 to 1940, inherited extensive land holdings accumulated mostly by her mother’s first husband, Civil War veteran Capt. L.N. Williams.

 Williams settled in the Roe area in 1867 and was a stock trader and farmer. He became one of the wealthiest men in the county and owned some 4,000 acres of land by 1872, according to the Monroe County Historical Society.

 The Brinkley Argus reported that Williams was shot to death in 1898 at the age of 62. His widow, Joe Dan “Jodie” Cannon Williams, married Jefferson Davis Minis, and their only child, Jewel Aliene, was born in 1902.

 Minnis had attended Ward-Belmont College (now Belmont University) in Nashville, the U of A at Fayetteville and Arkansas Teachers College at Conway. She never married, but reportedly helped several young people pay college tuition.

 The University of Arkansas Honors College Academy includes some 103 students in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.
 The Bumpers College offers 15 majors, including those in the School of Human Environmental Sciences. Majors for the Bachelor of Science in Agriculture degree are agricultural business; agricultural education, communication and technology; animal science; biological engineering; crop management; environmental, soil and water science; food science; horticulture; poultry science; and turf and landscape horticulture.

 Majors for the B.S. degree in human environmental sciences are apparel studies; food, human nutrition and hospitality; and human Development and Family Sciences; and Human Environmental Sciences. A Bachelor of Arts degree is offered in interior design.

 This gift was committed during the Campaign for the Twenty-First Century, which recorded $1.046 billion in gifts and pledges for student and faculty endowments, academic programs, capital improvements and University Libraries when it concluded June 30, 2005.