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Steadily her savings grew into generous gift

By ANDREW SKERRITT
Published August 4, 2006

When Anne F. Bucy died last summer at age 94, we ran a brief obituary. Just the basics - retired court reporter from Chicago; member of the Asbury United Methodist Church and Holiday Gardens Estate Civic Association. Survivors included a sister and a nephew.

The obituary gave no hint that she was so special. Few knew that for the past two decades, she had been donating thousands of dollars in scholarships for students at Pasco-Hernando Community College.

It turns out she was even more generous. Mrs. Bucy left $2.4-million in a trust for PHCC, the largest single individual donation in the school's 34-year history. Most of her gift will be matched dollar for dollar by the state and will push the PHCC Foundation's assets to more than $30-million.

In October, a building on the college's New Port Richey campus will be named for Mrs. Bucy.

This isn't the story of a rich widow who inherited her husband's money. During her working life, Mrs. Bucy was an average wage earner who learned how to accumulate money the smart way. With all the stock splits and mergers over the past six decades, she transformed her investment from a wage earner's income into a million-dollar portfolio.

She worked as a secretary for Eisenberg Jewelry in Chicago and later for the city of Chicago as a secretary and a court reporter.

Like most men of that era, her husband, Orville, exercised control in the household. He required her to bring home her entire paycheck.

She didn't.

She approached one of her bosses about investing and he introduced her to his stock broker. She began to stash away $2 a week out of her paycheck to invest in stocks and tax free bonds. That's the story she told Larry Wall, who works for a bank in Tampa, when he first met her after she had retired and moved to Pasco County in the early 70s.

For the longest time, Mrs. Bucy never told her husband she had invested money. At some point, though, he learned that she was worth considerably more than he was.

Her philosophy was to invest in companies whose goods and services would always be in demand - AT&T, Commonwealth Edison, the huge electric utility, and Exxon. When she died her holdings in the oil giant were worth $300,000.

This was no fluke. She was smart and good with numbers. She could recall her stock dividends from year to year, Wall said.

She was funny and adventurous. She got her driver's license in 1996 - when she was 85, the same time she learned to play the organ.

Years ago, Mrs. Bucy was among a group of people who heard a pitch from then PHCC president Milton Jones about the college's newly created nonprofit foundation. She liked what she heard about the endowed trusts. She was especially interested in helping female students.

That's how the relationship started. She'd attend events at the college and get a friend to drive her around the PHCC campus, recalled retired PHCC president Robert Judson, who succeeded Jones.

"She had a truly strong feeling toward PHCC and the students," said Judson, who met with Mrs. Bucy for lunch and other social events while he was president.

"She didn't have any children; this was her way of helping some youngsters to make good in life."

Andrew Skerritt can be reached at 813 909-4602 or toll free at 1-800-333-7505 ext. 4602. His e-mail address is askerritt@sptimes.com.

[Last modified August 4, 2006, 06:59:20]