Looking forward,
giving back
| "If they know this is out there, they may strive for it": the O'Keefes at home in Connecticut in May. (Ben Barnhart photo) |
Johns Island, Vero Beach, Florida, is one of the many gated communities that have taken shape amid the sand and palms of the barrier islands that lie between the white Atlantic beaches and the sparkling, brackish span of the Intercoastal Waterway. Its streets are lined with live-oak trees and meander gracefully past homes designed to admit salutary measures of gilded sunshine, aqua-cool shade, and playful breezes.
In every way, Johns Island is far, far from Peabody, Massachusetts, a North Shore city sandwiched between I-95 and Massachusetts Bay, its early claim to fame a leather-manufacturing industry and its more recent one as home to one of New England's first enclosed shopping malls. But Peabody has never been far from the heart of Johns Island resident Frank O'Keefe Jr., who, fifty-three years after graduating from the town's high school, still pronounces it like a native: "Peab'dy." This spring, when he and his wife established the Frank R. and Patricia F. O'Keefe Endowed Scholarship Fund, they made sure that there will be a direct route between UMass and the "great town" where he grew up.
The $500,000 endowment will fund tuition, fees, and books for an entire four years of undergraduate work for Peabody students to be selected yearly over the next decade. (The first O'Keefe scholar, Brian Pinheiro '04, will begin his studies this fall.) Sitting in the living room of their lakeside house in John's Island in April, the O'Keefes described the scholarship as "truly interactive," since the student is chosen jointly by UMass and the principal of the 1,700-student Peabody High. The O'Keefes stipulated that the award is not, as Frank says, "for the valedictorians and the salutatorians, who are probably going to be taken care of anyway.
"Someone who's not quite at that level, but who has distinguished himself in other ways, will qualify. These may be kids who, along the way, have foreclosed on the idea of college. If they know this is out there, maybe they'll strive for it."
It was a visit with
a buddy to the Mass State of
the mid-'40s that inspired O'Keefe to strive for college himself, and
in the fall of 1947, he joined the bustle of undergrads and returning
GIs on a campus that, despite its imminent transition to university status,
still felt "intimate." Like the students for whom the O'Keefe
scholarship is intended, Frank had few preconceptions about college, and
set about helping himself to a broad range of liberal-arts options. It's
less the academic specifics and more the unforgettable characters that
O'Keefe recalls now: learning how to drink tea in the home of "tall,
Lincolnesque" English professor Lee Varley; listening to botany prof
Ray Torrey expound on life in general; nearly expiring with the difficulty
of chemistry, but saved by the tireless efforts of Professor George Richason
'37, '39G. By the time O'Keefe gave the convocation speech in his senior
year, he'd become a lifelong believer in liberal arts education, which
he maintains is "about learning how to learn." In that speech,
he challenged the exemption of engineering and physics students from military
service, while liberal arts majors were expected to enlist: "I remember
making the point that a liberal education was deserving of a bit more
respect."
Escaping the cold in winter, and returning to their Fairfield, Connecticut, home in summer, became a way of life for the O'Keefes only after decades as "corporate nomads," Patricia said. After graduating from UMass in economics and spending two years in the Air Force, Frank held management jobs at General Electric, then top positions in the Robert Bosch and Armtek (formerly Armstrong Rubber) corporations. Pat, a native of Schenectady and a Russell Sage alumna, took nursing jobs of every stripe along the way.
Even in retirement, O'Keefe has served on a number of corporate boards. In fact, his anticipated retirement from the board of Aetna this spring inspired this scholarship, one of several the couple have established. The insurance giant offers a program giving board members the opportunity to do good for projects of their own choosing. O'Keefe, tracing his successful career back to his educations in Peabody and Amherst—"two very pleasant and productive associations for us"—decided the combination could lead others to success as well.
Over the years, O'Keefe has reached out to UMass in other ways as well: for instance, teaming up with GE's Jack Welch '57 and other corporate leaders to give management students an inside look at executive life at their firms. The School of Management feted him with its Distinguished Alumni Award in 1985, at which event he answered the perennial student question of how one soars to corporate heights with his memorable "Bust Your Butt" speech.
In line with that philosophy, O'Keefe says that recipients of O'Keefe scholarships will be expected to maintain at least a 3.0 average. But the snowbird from Peabody stresses that a less-than-stellar semester or two won't threaten the recipients' status.
"Neither of us," he said with a wry smile and a nod to Pat, "busted the dean's list all the time. Just because if they blow a semester, I don't want them to lose this.
– Ali Crolius
