Altheimer Foundation’s $250,000 Gift Will Establish Sites Endowed Professorship

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The Ben J. Altheimer Charitable Foundation Inc., a longtime supporter of the University of Arkansas System and its institutions, will provide $250,000 to establish an endowed professorship in the UA Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.

The Clyde H. Sites Endowed Professorship in International Crop Physiology will be used to recruit and retain highly qualified faculty to the Bumpers College, supplement support for outstanding faculty and to provide the holder with resources to further that scholar’s contributions to teaching, research and service.

The first Sites Professor is Derrick M. Oosterhuis, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Crop, Soils and Environmental Sciences, has been awarded the position of Sites Professor. He has been a UA professor for 18 years.

UA Chancellor John A. White said: "We are extremely grateful to the Ben J. Altheimer Charitable Foundation for this generous gift to establish an endowed professorship in Bumpers College. This professorship will enable us to keep outstanding educators and researchers on the UA faculty. We are thankful for the Ben J. Altheimer Charitable Foundation’s help in supporting our vision of a nationally competitive, student-centered research university serving Arkansas and the world."

This gift will be matched by $250,000 from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation’s $300 million gift to the uUniversity in 2002. Investment returns on the total endowment of $500,000 will be used to enhance teaching, research and service programs, said Dean Greg Weidemann of the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.

Weidemann said: "The Altheimer Foundation has been a generous supporter of both Bumpers College and Division of Agriculture programs over the years, and we are grateful for their continued support. This professorship will be a valuable tool for us as we continue to seek ways to improve faculty support and increase faculty resources. Derrick Oosterhuis is an excellent candidate to be the first holder of the Sites Professorship."

John Selig, president of the Ben J. Altheimer Charitable Foundation Inc., said: "Clyde Sites was a major reason why the Ben J. Altheimer Charitable Foundation has the financial resources to make grants to improve agriculture in Arkansas, and to help residents of Jefferson County. Over his long business career with the Elms Planting Company he worked tirelessly and successfully in fostering profitable farming operations and good stewardship of the lands, which it and its affiliates farmed. We are pleased to have this opportunity to honor Mr. Sites in a manner that will permanently exemplify his outstanding contributions and we thank the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation and the University of Arkansas for helping to make this possible."

Clyde H. Sites — whom the endowed professorship honors — graduated from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, with a degree in Agriculture (BSA) in 1957. As a student, he was a member of two honor societies (Alpha Zeta and Gamma Sigma Delta). He had a 40-year agricultural career in Altheimer, Ark., after Navy military service and college.

Upon his graduation from the University of Arkansas, he joined in the farm management team for Elms Planting Company at Altheimer and its affiliates. Those farming operations, at their zenith, involved over 20,000 acres, in which the Ben J. Altheimer Charitable Foundation’s predecessor, the Ben J. Altheimer Foundation, held ownership interests. Sites was actively involved in the sale of those lands to Prudential Insurance Company.

Sites was also a founder of Altheimer School Aid Inc., a non-profit support organization for the Altheimer Unified School District and has served on its board and as its president since its formation in 1988. He also was a founder of Altheimer Town Aid Inc., a non-profit support organization for the City of Altheimer and has served on its board and as an officer since its formation in 1990.

Sites has been married over 57 years to Joyce Sites. The parents of six children, Clyde and Joyce Ssites are natives of Sheridan, Ark. The Sites family was recognized by Jefferson County as the "Farm Family of the Year," in 1986. He was also selected and listed in the 1988-89 edition of the Marquis Who’s Who in the South and Southwest—21st Edition in the field of agriculture.

Ben J. Altheimer, a successful attorney, was born in Pine Bluff, where he practiced law before moving to Chicago and establishing one of that city’s most prestigious law firms there in 1910. He frequently returned to Arkansas, where he had acquired farmland near Altheimer. The town, which was named for his father and uncle, who donated land to the railroad for the establishment of a depot. He established the Ben J. Altheimer Foundation before his death in 1946 to benefit 35 programs in Arkansas, including several within the UA System. Altheimer was the single trustee of the Ben J. Altheimer Foundation until his death, when five trustees designated by him assumed the responsibility for its continuation. It remained existent over 50 years and was succeeded by the Ben J. Altheimer Charitable Foundation, in 1995.

Since 1946, the Ben J. Altheimer Charitable Foundation, as did its predecessor, has donated millions of dollars to charities and programs across Arkansas, mostly to benefit agriculture in Jefferson County (with particular emphasis on the city of Altheimer) and the law.

The Ben J. Altheimer Charitable Foundation and its predecessor also have also previously supported the UA School of Law in Fayetteville as well as other schools of the University of Arkansas System.

This gift counts toward The $300 Million Challenge, the campaign-within-a-campaign. The purpose of the Challenge is to raise $300 million for academic purposes to match the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation’s $300 million gift. Challenge funds must be raised between Jan. 1, 2002, and June 30, 2005, the end of the Campaign. The Challenge total stands at $152 million, and the overall Campaign total stands at $782 million as of Dec. 31, 2003.