UA ALUMNUS ESTABLISHES MEMORIAL ENDOWMENT

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - University of Arkansas alumnus, and retired petroleum industry chemist, K. Louis (K.L.) Mills and his wife, have pledged $100,000 to support, attract and retain outstanding faculty and staff in several UA departments.

With the establishment of the Doris Maurine Walters Mills Memorial Endowment, funds may be utilized to fund visiting professors or lecturers; to fund and reward faculty research and development initiatives; to attract, and to fund and retain outstanding faculty and staff in the departments of chemistry and biochemistry in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, and the department of chemical engineering in the College of Engineering. The endowment is named for Mills’ first wife, a UA alumna, who earned her bachelor’s degree in home economics from the U of A in 1937. She died in 1955.

Mr. Mills is a 1934 graduate of Conway High School, and 1938 graduate of the University of Central Arkansas, which was then called the Arkansas State Teachers College. He went on to earn his master’s degree in chemistry in 1942 from the University of Arkansas. Upon graduation, he worked as a chemist for Phillips Petroleum Co. in Bartlesville, Okla., until his retirement in 1981.

"We are extremely grateful for the support of Mr. Mills," UA Chancellor John A. White said. "We are particularly pleased with how this gift supports, in several important ways, the strengthening of academic quality in science and engineering. Mr. Mills’s generosity will fuel our vision of emerging as a nationally competitive, student-centered research university serving Arkansas and the world."