Planned Giving

Paying it Forward
Gene & Linda Lloyd establish significant endowment fund to advance academic success

Enduring Acts of Generosity
Chris (CO ’67) & Vicki Lembcke’s estate gift to FarmHouse

You don’t have to be a nuclear engineer to make an estate gift.
But Don Ferguson (KS ’63) is and did.

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Paying it Forward
Gene & Linda Lloyd establish significant endowment fund to advance academic success

     The FarmHouse Foundation is extremely pleased to announce Gene and Linda Lloyd have established the W. Eugene & Linda Lloyd Scholarship Endowment through two generous donations totaling $250,000. The Lloyd's endowment is the Foundation's largest fund for academic scholarships.

     "We are making this gift to pay forward to an organization that has impacted our lives," said W. Eugene Lloyd (IA '47). "FarmHouse was an important part of my college heritage. With this gift, we want to recognize and reward outstanding academics in FarmHouse and help ensure the Fraternity's rich tradition of academic excellence continues in the future."

     The Lloyd Scholarship Endowment Fund will provide academic scholarships to recognize and reward outstanding chapter members and female FarmHouse legacies majoring in agriculture and/or life sciences. Recipients must be initiated members of FarmHouse Fraternity or a female legacy of a FarmHouse member (i.e. daughter, granddaughter, sister or niece), enrolled at a university hosting a FarmHouse chapter. Alumni members in graduate school may also apply if enrolled at a university hosting a FarmHouse chapter.

     "We are humbled by and grateful for Gene and Linda's generosity to support academic excellence in FarmHouse," said Allison Rickels, CFRE, Executive Director of the FarmHouse Foundation. "One of the most visible acts of the Foundation is to recognize deserving brothers for their academic achievement. The Lloyds' gift allows us to expand our mission of ‘Building the Leaders of Tomorrow' and provide additional scholarships to deserving members. The fund also gives the Foundation an unprecedented opportunity to support female legacies of FarmHouse men."

     Gene attended Iowa State University, from 1942 until 1944 and, after serving in the U.S. Navy, from 1946-1949. He joined FarmHouse in the fall of 1946. "I only lived in the chapter house one quarter but I attended every FarmHouse event I could, including meetings and mixers," said Gene. "I liked what FarmHouse stood for – the open critique sessions with my brothers, the high scholastic standards and striving to be of good moral character. I made life-long friends and connections through FarmHouse."

     After earning his doctorate of veterinarian medicine, Gene practiced private veterinary medicine until 1958, when he established Vet-a-Mix/LLOYD Inc. in Shenandoah, Iowa. He also served as a professor of pathology/toxicology at Iowa State University from 1974-1984. Today the company, Lloyd, Inc., is a highly successful developer and manufacturer of pharmaceutical and nutritional products for animals and humans. Gene is chairman and CEO, and Linda is a quality assurance assistant. He received the Outstanding Service Award from the American Board of Veterinary Toxicology, was cited by the Iowa Farm Bureau in its 150th anniversary program, "Iowans Who Made a Difference," and was named one of 28 leaders in veterinary medicine in the United States of the mid-20th century. Gene serves on the Iowa State University Foundation Board of Governors. He and Linda are active in several community organizations, and are recipients of numerous awards for their service and philanthropy. The Lloyds live in Ft. Myers, Florida.

     Two $1,600 Lloyd Scholarships will be awarded for the 2010-11 academic year. Applications are available on the Foundation's website and are to be submitted by June 1, 2010. The FarmHouse Foundation is a 501(c)3 public educational foundation supporting the educational and leadership programs of the Fraternity as well as providing scholarships to individual members for academic achievement. FarmHouse International Fraternity is a men's international agriculturally-related fraternity founded in 1905 that seeks to build men intellectually, spiritually, socially, morally and physically. FarmHouse is located on 34 campuses throughout the United States and Canada, with 1,300 undergraduates and 20,000 living alumni.

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Enduring Acts of Generosity
by Bob Off (CO ’64)
Foundation Executive Director Emeritus

     Chris Lembcke (CO ’67) and his wife, Vicki, have served and supported FarmHouse nigh on to four decades.
     My first recollection of their long devotion to the Fraternity is when Chris was elected to the International Executive Board at the 1980 Conclave. By then I think he had already served several terms as an advisor to the Colorado State Chapter and as president of the Colorado FarmHouse Association.
     During Chris’s first 4-year term on the International Board (he served the full eight years traditionally allowed), the International Board warily began to consider rejoining the National Interfraternity Conference, which is now known as the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC), the trade association that represents 72 men’s fraternities. Chris and I were delegated by the Board to attend the NIC’s annual meeting to see if it would be worth the Fraternity’s limited resources to become a member.
      The NIC meeting that year was at the Chase Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, Mo. The Chase had once been one of the grand hotels of St. Louis, but was decidedly shop worn at the time. I think it was probably the first experience for both of us at a big city hotel. On our way to the closing banquet, we got stuck in an elevator full of men in tuxedos and ladies in ball gowns. When the elevator got moving again, we got off to find our fellow passengers were on their way to the same banquet, and that Chris and I would be the only men there in blue sport coats and khaki slacks!
     We determined, however, that FarmHouse could not afford to not be a member of the NIC. Chris took the lead and was successful in convincing the rest of the Board. The NIC was then the spokesman for the men’s fraternities to higher education and the larger community.  Since then it has frequently been seen as speaking for the wider interfraternity world, often including the women’s groups.  In recent years, it has been the primary advocate with Congress for making the entirety, not just the so called “educational portion”, of fraternity and sorority housing a tax-deductible gift for the thousands of generous Greek alumni who support the hands-on, practical leadership, management and interpersonal relations training that can take place in the house of a good fraternity chapter.
     Chris and Vicki have always been big picture people as further evidenced by the leadership role they both played in the Fraternity’s consideration of the role of women in the organization in the early 1980’s. Members of the Fraternity during that era may recall that it was the 1984 Conclave which approved the establishment of an agriculture-related women’s fraternity which was spun off as Ceres Fraternity in 1985 with the chartering of the first chapter at Colorado State. Both Vicki and Chris served as advisors to the chapter in its early years. The group has since closed, but not for lack of every effort by the Lembckes to save it.
     At the 2006 Conclave, Chris was honored as a Master Builder of Men – the highest award the Fraternity bestows on alumni members.
     At a breakfast at that Conclave, Chris and Vicki began to talk to me about their desire to do something lasting for the Fraternity in their estate plan.  Little did I know that this conversation would grow and develop so that by January 2007 it would become the basis for The Chris and Vicki Lembcke Chapter Housing Fund which will be funded out of their estate.
     With their generous mid-six figure planned gift, Chris and Vicki are again at the cutting edge of what FarmHouse International Fraternity & Foundation needs to be doing to assure the future of the Fraternity in the 21st Century: providing significant grants and loans to the local FarmHouse alumni associations to help fund safe, comfortable and affordable chapter housing.
     The Lembcke’s planned gift matches very well the long-term goals of the Fraternity and Foundation and will be a lasting legacy of their generous gifts of their time, talent and treasure across the years!

Leave Your Legacy with FarmHouse      Long-range estate and financial planning can enable you to make a substantial contribution to a FarmHouse program or project of your choice in a manner consistent with your overall charitable and personal commitments.      Some examples of planned gifts include bequests, insurance policies, charitable remainder trusts and charitable gift annuities. The Foundation recognizes alumni who have made such generous gifts as members of the FarmHouse Futures Fund.      If you would like more information on how you can follow Chris and Vicki’s example, please contact Allison Rickels, executive director of The FarmHouse Foundation, at allison@farmhouse.org, (800) 722-1905; or me at bob@farmhouse.org, or leave me a voice mail at (816) 799-0817.

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You don’t have to be a nuclear engineer to make an estate gift.
But Don Ferguson (KS ’63) is and did.

A graduate of Kansas State in nuclear engineering with advanced degrees in nuclear science from Kansas State, the University of Birmingham and a PhD from MIT, today Don is one of the world’s leading authorities in the nuclear industry. He is executive vice president, CFO and co-founder of EnergX, serving as a consultant to firms in the defense and commercial nuclear industries, including the cleanup of the Department of Energy’s Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site.

Some of the most powerful lessons he has learned he credits to FarmHouse – lessons that have served him well through some of the most exciting and challenging periods of the nuclear energy industry.

A Foundation Trustee, Don and his wife, Signe, have pledged a six figure planned gift, which , when it comes to fruition will create an unrestricted endowment to support the future and emerging needs of FarmHouse.

While we don’t expect all FarmHouse men to understand nuclear science, we do hope all FarmHouse men understand the importance of supporting FarmHouse.

Perhaps, like Don, you have named or are considering naming the FarmHouse Foundation in your estate plans? By informing us of your gift, or of major changes in an already existing gift plan, we can help you achieve your charitable goals, while “Building the Leaders of Tomorrow.”

To discuss this or any type of gift, contact Allison Rickels or Bob Off, of the Foundation staff.