The Warren and Betty Burnside Scholarship: A Four Million Dollar Labor of Love
By Julie Perine on May 08, 2016
In a couple of weeks, organizations will award college scholarships to Bridgeport High School seniors. Among those organizations is the Warren and Betty Burnside Foundation, which has been awarding scholarship dollars to Harrison County students for a quarter of a century.
In fact, this year is the foundation’s 25th anniversary. Since it began in 1992, the foundation – initiated by the Burnsides – who had no children of their own – has awarded 2,352 students, totaling close to $4 million.
The exact amount, said LaDonne Wetzel, former foundation office manager and family friend, is $3,900,500.
Celebrating a milestone anniversary this year, members of the foundation’s board of directors and others who have been involved in the scholarship effort would like to hear from some of the students who received the generous award over the years.
“We want to hear how receiving this scholarship helped them with their education and how it contributed to their success today,” Wetzel said. “Who knows? We might have some brain surgeons out there.”
Brain surgeon, lawyer, teacher, builder, baker or candlestick maker; it doesn’t really matter. What matters, Wetzel said, is that the generosity of this couple has helped make a lot of dreams come true.
It meant a lot to the Burnsides, who accumulated some wealth during their years with their own initiative, brains and drive.
Neither of them really had any college and they felt it was so important for kids – especially kids in this area – to get good education and hopefully they would give back to West Virginia someday,” she said.
Both grew up here in Harrison County. Betty’s mom and dad were a school teacher and glass plant worker, respectively. Warren’s mom worked as a seamstress at Broida’s for many years.
Warren entered the U.S. Armed Forces immediately after graduating high school. Betty did go to business college. When Warren came out of the service, he hand-picked a career and educated himself about it.
“He bought a book about how to sell real estate – and that’s what he did,” Wetzel said. “She was the office person and he was the salesman in a little office building on the corner of Dunkin and Duff streets. It was just a little place with an office in the front and they lived in the back.”
After developing a successful real estate business, the Burnsides started a savings and loan company. Thereafter, they founded United Security Agency.
“It was a package deal,” Wetzel said. “They could loan you money to buy a house and then insure it for you.”
It was all pretty amazing.
“He could just do something and it turned to money,” Wetzel said.
Wetzel had great respect for the Burnsides.
“I knew them my entire life. I have a picture of me when I was 18 months old, taken on the day they got married,” she said. “My mom and dad were on one side and Betty Lee and some friends of hers were on the other. I’m standing in front of them.”
Wetzel said her mother’s grandmother and Betty’s grandmother were sisters. The girls grew up together and attended high school together and remained very good friends. After they married, they continued that friendship.
“For years and years, my mom and dad and Betty Lee and ‘Mutt’ went out to eat every Friday night,” she said. “And they would drive anywhere to eat. It was nothing for them to go to Pittsburgh or down to The Greenbrier just to have dinner.”
The Burnsides lived a good life and had a nice home in Clarksburg.
“But they didn’t dress and they didn’t travel or have expensive cars,” Wetzel said. “They didn’t life like they were rich.”
After retiring, the couple established the Burnside Foundation in 1992 and began giving generous gifts to area students who wanted to further their education.
LaDonne became involved with the Burnside Foundation when Warren was sick and living in a nursing home.
“He died in June and she had all the scholarship applications to get ready and work on,” Wetzel said.
Mr. Burnside passed away in 2000 when Betty Lee was 85 years old. Five years later, she passed on too. Wetzel stayed on board as office manager, working under a board of directors. She continued a project that Mrs. Burnside had continued – a scrapbook that contained pictures of scholarship recipients and newspaper articles written about them.
“Betty Lee had a scrapbook from 1999 and I started doing them after that,” Wetzel said.
In 2008/2009, Wetzel passed on her office manager’s position to Nancy Lucante, who continued the scrapbook project. The ladies and board of directors – for which Bobby Tolley serves as president – hopes now to hear from some of those students whose bright shining young faces are on the pages of that scrapbook.
“It’s like a history,” she said. “Someday they can look back through all those years and, who knows, maybe some of those kids will be on the board of directors someday. We are hoping to hear from many of them.”
Wetzel is still on the scholarship selection committee and is still passionate about the foundation and what it has done for young people in our community.
“It’s been a labor of love,” she said.
Emails expressing appreciation and just telling board members what the scholarship has meant to them and what they are now doing can be directed to burnsidefoundation@frontier.com.
Learn more about the Warren and Betty Burnside Foundation Scholarship by calling 304-623-3668 or visit the Burnside Foundation Web site HERE.
Leave a Comment
Log in or create an account to post a comment.