T.K. Wetherell and his wife will leave their 1,000-acre Jefferson County plantation to the university.
By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published October 25, 2003
TALLAHASSEE - Every so often, T.K. Wetherell makes history at Florida State University.
As a football player in the 1960s, he returned a kickoff 100 yards to set a Seminole record. As a powerful legislator in the 1980s and '90s, he steered millions of dollars to renovate a football stadium and academic complex that bears his name.
The Florida State president made his mark again Friday.
Wetherell and his wife, Virginia, announced they will leave their 1,000-acre plantation in nearby Jefferson County to his alma mater after they die. The gift is worth $7.5-million.
"It's a stage in my life where you start thinking about the future," said Wetherell, 57. "You can't take it with you."
The school said it is believed to be the largest disclosed gift to a public university by a sitting president.
The money will pay for a scholarship house named for the Wetherells, academic and athletic scholarships to FSU, an endowment named for the Wetherells and an alumni center. The athletic scholarships will be split equally between male and female students.
The student aid will allow the 49-year-old Southern Scholarship Foundation to provide rent-free housing to students from moderate-income families who live together and share expenses.
Wetherell's father, Tommy, served on the board of the foundation in the 1960s and 1970s and was its treasurer.
The Wetherells stipulate that while the property can be sold, it must remain in one parcel and in its natural state. There soon will be an agreement with an environmental group that includes conservation easements, which the university would honor. The site cannot be subdivided into house lots.
"You couldn't go in there and clear-cut it," said Virginia Wetherell, a former Florida environmental secretary. "You couldn't put a golf course in there."
Wetherell's eyes welled up with tears as a gathering of FSU staffers and supporters cheered at the announcement on campus. His wife said his mentors at FSU when he was a student cemented a powerful emotional bond to the university.
Wetherell said he planned to announce the gift several months ago, but he delayed it until he got a clean bill of health from his doctors after radiation treatments for prostate cancer.
Wetherell, the son of a Sears, Roebuck and Co. store manager in Daytona Beach, is a career educator who holds three degrees from FSU. He taught history and social sciences and is a former president of Tallahassee Community College.
His investments in real estate and bonds mushroomed in the 1980s, and his contract at TCC allowed him to work as a lobbyist.
Wetherell was House speaker from 1990-1992, a period of upheaval during which Florida weathered a severe budget crisis and realigned legislative districts in a way that would eventually give Republicans control for the first time in more than century.
He became FSU's president last December.
The Wetherell estate in the tiny town of Lamont is known as Oak Hill. The heavily wooded farm is surrounded by a much larger plantation owned by Ted Turner.
Wetherell likes to relax at the wheel of a big John Deere tractor, but he said the demands of his job, with its early-morning breakfasts and late-night meetings, limit his visits to Oak Hill to about once a week, usually on Sundays.
"We try to get one day a week out there, but it's tough. It's real tough," Wetherell said.
