Bestor Scholarship

Nov 18, 1997 | Scholarships

 She The Bestor Scholarship was established by the Board of Regents of The University of Texas System on November 18, 1997, for the benefit of the College of Liberal Arts. Gift funds were provided by an anonymous donor.

The gift honors the memory of three members of the Bestor Family:

Horace Paul Bestor (1883-1962) was born on a poor farm in Iowa and worked his way through college first at Tarkio College in Missouri and then at Yale. He served on Hiram Bingam’s expedition to excavate Machu Pichu in 1911 and, after a brief successful career in education, returned to farming, and was later elected to the Missouri State Legislature. After his legislative term ended he joined the Federal Land Bank, and was named Commissioner for federal farm loans under the Hoover administration. He concluded his professional career as a vice-president of the Prudential Insurance Company.

Mary Rankin Bestor (1885-1967) grew up on a prosperous Missouri farm. Mary met Paul Bestor at Tarkio College, and was his wife and lifetime companion.

Barbara Jane Bestor Woodruff (1914-2003), elder daughter of Paul and Mary, was born in New Haven and attended Wheaton College in Norton,Massachusetts, where she majored in Classics and was the top scholar in her year. She was part of the first wave of women to attend Yale Law School-a very small wave-in 1935. The profession of law was not especially friendly to women in those days. Barbara was admitted to the bar but did not practice.

She was an avid gardener, a lover of the natural world. Classical literature was a lifelong fascination, and well into her eighties Barbara was reading Homer, and Greek poetry, with likeminded friends. The Bestor Scholarship celebrates her love of classics.

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