Alum name on Art Center

A new arts center at Colorado College will be named for CC alumna and media heiress Edith Kinney Gaylord after the school received a $6 million donation from her foundation.

The Inasmuch Foundation, based in Oklahoma City, gave $4 million to the project in 2004. The latest contribution brings the foundation’s donation to nearly a third of the project’s $33.4 million total cost. The building, which college officials consider a crown jewel of the campus, will be called the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center.

Before her death in January 2001, Gaylord was the most generous living donor in CC’s history, starting several funds and endowments, said Steve Elder, CC’s vice president of advancement. Combined donations from her and the foundation total $15.8 million, placing her alongside El Pomar and The David and Lucile Packard Foundation as the college’s top donors.

Gaylord was the daughter of newspaper baron E.K. Gaylord, who was editor and publisher of The Oklahoman and Oklahoma City Times. Her brother, E.L. Gaylord, turned the company, The Oklahoma Publishing Co., into a multibillion-dollar operation. Its assets include The Broadmoor hotel.

Edith Gaylord and her father attended CC and served on its board of trustees. She served from 1975-99.

She graduated from Wells College in Aurora, N.Y., in 1939 but always considered CC her alma mater, said Bob Ross, president and chief executive officer of the Inasmuch Foundation. Ross said her parents forced her to leave CC because, in her words, she was having “too much fun.”

“She loved Colorado College,” he said. “It was the best years of her life.”

She became a journalist, first at her father’s newspapers and later for The Associated Press. Gaylord later was an active member on the board of The Oklahoma Publishing Co.

She started the Inasmuch Foundation in 1982 to support education, arts and culture, health and human services, historic preservation, and environmental concerns in Oklahoma City and Colorado Springs.

The donation comes on the heels of a $10 million gift to CC made in October by the El Pomar Foundation.

Elder said the multimilliondollar donations are building momentum in a $300 million fundraising campaign led by CC President Richard Celeste. In addition to the arts center, the campaign includes plans for a health and fitness center, library, scholarships and a technology fund. The college has raised $131.5 million.

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