Donald and Doris Taylor Scholarship

Mother's Gift to Honor Daughter Helps Careers in Natural Resources

Taylor saw what a gift can do while working for the NU Foundation

Doris Taylor's daughter gave her a gift of concern for the Earth and she decided to give one back. She decided to "pay it forward" by establishing a scholarship through the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's School of Natural Resources (SNR).

She and her husband Don set up the Donald and Doris L. Taylor Scholarship to assist undergraduates in the SNR because of their daughter Kristin's dedication to conservation while she was a student at UNL in natural resources in the early 1980s.

Doris had worked for the University of Nebraska Foundation and knew the value of gifts given to the university. Kristin, now going by the last name of Kasparek, got married and became a mother two semesters before finishing her degree. When she retired, Doris wanted to do something to help future students interested in careers in natural resources complete their studies.

"I set it up in her honor, for a young woman or man going to college, and for the environment because of the issues facing the future of the planet," she said. "Kristin was very interested in natural resources. She wrote the Lincoln paper promoting the conservation, not the elimination, of bats, for example."

Kristin now teaches software for a Lincoln company but left a legacy through her mother, who says her awareness of environmental issues was raised as a result of her daughter's passion. Doris has one grandchild, and said that she set up the fund thinking not only of her child but of her child's child and those of the next generation and the planet they will inherit.

"It's very important that people think of the world ahead of today. We need to clean up the world for our children and grandchildren, so that the air will be better, so that the water will be better," she explained. "I'm hoping that this money will help a student who might someday perform research that will lead to a better future."

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