Eugene Allen Left A Lasting Legacy With His Bequest

By Kimberly Martin Begg, Director of Planned Giving

History will remember Ronald Reagan as one of America's finest heroes. Young America's Foundation will remember Eugene S. Allen in much the same way.

Like Ronald Reagan, Mr. Allen advanced the cause of freedom by reaching youth with his ideas. He understood that young people could not know, as Ronald Reagan said, "America is freedom - freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise," unless that's what they were taught. And he knew colleges and universities, like his own alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley, were not teaching these truths. In order to reach young people with his ideas, Mr. Allen sponsored several scholarships to send young people, including his great grandniece, to the National Conservative Student Conference every summer in Washington, D.C. He enjoyed hearing from the young people he helped and even wrote letters to several of them sharing his experiences as a student at U.C. Berkeley. Mr. Allen would have been thrilled to hear that nearly fifty students from Berkeley attended Young America's Foundation's West Coast Leadership Conference in November!

When Mr. Allen made his decision about how to define his legacy with his estate plans, he included a $310,000 gift to Young America's Foundation in his trust because reaching young people was such an important part of his life. Mr. Allen lived a very full life with his wife, Inez, whom he married on December 28, 1936. He graduated from U.C. Berkeley the following May with a B.S. in Metallurgy and had a successful and distinguished career in mining. He and Inez traveled to exotic countries for his work, and Inez enjoyed swapping recipes with women of different cultures.

Mr. Allen left behind family and friends who care for him deeply. In 2004, Mr. Allen's estate was settled, and Billy J. Towery, Mr. Allen's nephew, visited our headquarters in Herndon, Virginia to hand-deliver Mr. Allen's gift. We were touched that Mr. Towery traveled all the way from California to become acquainted with Young America's Foundation, an organization that meant so much to his uncle.

Mr. Allen also left behind good friends at Young America's Foundation. Young America's Foundation President Ron Robinson remembers him everyday when he looks at a gift from Mr. Allen hanging on his wall: a Western-style print of ranchers on horseback. The original once hung in Ronald Reagan's gubernatorial office and again in the Oval Office once he became President of the United States. Ronald Reagan saw the art as a cover for Western Horseman and got in touch with the painter, Jack N. Swanson. As Mr. Swanson recalls about his visit to then-Governor Reagan's office to loan him the painting for his wall, "We proceeded to have a great visit - him kicked back with his feet on the desk, and I [was] sitting on the edge and talking about horses and ranching."

We lost a dear friend when Mr. Allen passed away. But his memory and his ideas live on in the young people whose lives he touches everyday with his generous legacy gift!

Foundation President Ron Robinson stands with the portrait Mr. Allen presented to him, which hangs in his office.