PORTLAND, ORE.— (July 11, 2005) —Business Wire CEO Lorry Lokey has given the University of Oregon two gifts totaling $6.5 million to help extend its journalism program to Portland, Ore. and renovate its music building on the main campus in Eugene, Ore.

“Lorry Lokey’s generosity is simply astounding,” said university president Dave Frohnmayer, who announced the gift today. “He believes strongly in the power of education to transform lives. We are extremely grateful that he has included the University of Oregon in his philanthropy.”

Slated to open in 2005, the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication George S. Turnbull Portland Center plans to offer degree programs by fall 2006. A faculty committee is reviewing program options, including a master’s program in management communications for working professionals and a “senior experience” that would combine senior-level coursework with internships in public relations for the school’s undergraduate and professional masters programs.

Lokey, who has homes in Atherton, Calif. and Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, said giving money to education has always been a high priority for him, but a 1996 heart attack accelerated his philanthropy to the point where he now gives away 80 percent of his income for the cause. “To me, no matter what else affects your life, the single most important thing is education,” he said. “Without it, I would probably be driving a truck or selling wares in a store somewhere.”

The graduate of Alameda Elementary and Grant High School in Portland is giving $4.5 million for the University of Oregon’s Portland journalism program and $2 million for the music building—on top of an earlier $2-million gift for the music building announced in January, bringing his total giving to the UO to $8.5 million.

“This gift helps realize a vision that the school has held for nearly two decades,” said Tim Gleason, Edwin L. Artzt Dean of the UO School of Journalism and Communication. “This gift matches a previously announced anonymous gift of $4.5 million for the journalism program in Portland, bringing the total contributed to support this program to $9 million. Because of Mr. Lokey’s generosity, as well as the support of our anonymous donor, we can now move forward with our plans to establish a program in the state’s media and advertising center. This will make the school even more competitive in recruiting the best students and will enable us to offer students both in Eugene and in Portland exciting new opportunities. We are thrilled by this gift and grateful to Lorry for believing in our vision.”

Lokey’s most recent $2-million gift to the University of Oregon School of Music will name the music building — after a planned $15.2-million renovation and expansion — in memory of MarAbel Frohnmayer, a 1931 graduate of the school and mother of university President Dave Frohnmayer. MarAbel, who died in 2003 at the age of 94, was instrumental in the founding and continuation of almost every major arts organization in the Medford area from the 1930s to the 1990s.

A 1949 journalism graduate of Stanford University, Lokey is grateful to a former University of Oregon journalism dean, George Turnbull, who was his professor for a year at Stanford and who found him his first job as a night wire editor at United Press in Portland in 1949. The Portland program will be called The University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication George S. Turnbull Portland Center. “He had a direct bearing on my life and when people do that I don’t forget them,” said Lokey.

In recent years, Lokey has made large gifts to educational institutions including Stanford, Santa Clara University, Alameda Elementary School, Mills College and the Leo Baeck School in Haifa, Israel.

Lokey’s gifts are contributions to Campaign Oregon: Transforming Lives, the University of Oregon’s $600 million fund-raising initiative, which has so far raised about $360 million.
> Contact: Pauline Austin, (541) 346-3129, paustin@uoregon.edu