A lost 1969 yearbook and an act of kindness sparks million dollar gift

[Sept 15, 2021: George McDonald]

A lost year book — a twist of fate — and a random act of kindness — lead to a major donation at Marion Military Institute.

MMI is surprised with a huge monetary gift — after an employee goes above and beyond the call of duty — for an alumnus.

“We had an alumnus from San Antonio, Texas who had not been in touch with us since he graduated from MMI. And he had lost his yearbook, ” said Suzanne McKee.

He was looking for a yearbook — from 1969.

“And we didn’t have an extra one.”

But a few weeks later — another graduate totally unaware of the situation — finds a box of MMI yearbooks — in a thrift store.

He bought the box of yearbooks — and donated them to the school.

And as fate would have it — a 1969 yearbook was among the collection.

“Vanessa Nicholson is our archivist. And she promptly gets the 1969 yearbook and mails it to this alumnus. Dr. George Rapier is his name,” McKee said.

Rapier would soon reach out to school officials — about making a donation to the school. Although he’d done neither — over the years.

“The gift arrives and we all are anticipating opening this gift, and there’s a check for $1,000,000 dollars,” said McKee.

“We weren’t expecting that,” said MMI President Col. David Mollahan.

“A million dollar check isn’t something you see everyday. That’s for sure.”

Mollahan says the experience re-enforces the focus the school puts on leadership and character development.

“It was a good way to reinforce why being good and being kind and saying nice things to people and just helping them out can come back and really give you something back that you hadn’t expected,” he said.

Marion Military Institute is the oldest military junior college in the country.

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