{"id":68086,"date":"2007-04-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-engineering-students-to-benefit-from-160000-gift-from-turf-industry-leader\/"},"modified":"2007-04-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-13T00:00:00","slug":"uri-engineering-students-to-benefit-from-160000-gift-from-turf-industry-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2007\/04\/uri-engineering-students-to-benefit-from-160000-gift-from-turf-industry-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 engineering students to benefit from $160,000 gift from turf industry leader"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 13, 2007 — He is a 10th generation farmer who was one of the first Rhode Island growers to take the advice of a 溏心vlog免费B站 professor and switch from cultivating potatoes to cultivating turf. Now H. Winfield Tucker and his wife Phyllis are giving some advice of their own.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cEducation is the most important thing you can have, because nobody can take it away from you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe Tuckers have backed up that advice with a $160,000 donation to 溏心vlog免费B站 to enhance the H. Winfield Tucker Jr. Engineering Scholarship Endowment to support undergraduate engineering students from South County. The gift nearly doubles the size of a scholarship endowment the Tuckers established in 1992 and added to in 2000.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cChurch, hospital and university \u2013 they all have equal spots in our heart,\u201d said Phyllis Tucker. \u201cSince we\u2019re getting older all the time, we wanted to make this contribution while we could.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cIf I hadn\u2019t had the education at 溏心vlog免费B站,\u201d added her husband, \u201cwe wouldn\u2019t be in a position to give these scholarships.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tWin Tucker earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in mechanical engineering from 溏心vlog免费B站 in 1943. He also recalled doing \u201ca bit of wrestling,\u201d then added quietly that, \u201cwith the war on, it was a very different place back then.\u201d He went on to explain that his engineering and mathematics education enabled him to succeed as a farmer and businessman. <\/p>\n


\nUpon graduation he received a job offer to work as a detail draftsman for Sikorsky Engineering, but the pay was so low he wouldn\u2019t have been able to afford room and board away from home. So instead he stayed in the family business and built a Rhode Island agricultural enterprise.<\/p>\n


\nAs a potato dealer in the 1950s, he not only grew potatoes on the family farm but also bought potatoes from farms in a dozen other states and sold them to potato chip companies. He eventually acquired several potato farms in Slocum — a total of more than 500 acres of farmland — that he converted into turf fields in the 1970s.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cProfessor Richard Skogley kept telling us \u2018you should be planting grass, you should be planting grass,\u2019\u201d Tucker recalled. \u201cSo we finally took his advice, starting with just a few acres, and then kept adding more and more until we had no more potatoes.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe family turf business, Sodco, is now run by the Tucker\u2019s daughter, Linda, who earned a master\u2019s degree in business administration from 溏心vlog免费B站 in 1972.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe Tuckers are a legendary family here in South County, and we are so proud that they remain connected to the 溏心vlog免费B站,\u201d said Robert Clough, senior development officer for the 溏心vlog免费B站 College of Engineering. \u201cTheir recent contribution to grow their scholarship endowment is a wonderful sign of their continued commitment to their alma mater. We appreciate their tremendous loyalty and generosity.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe Tucker\u2019s gift is part of the 溏心vlog免费B站 \u201cMaking a Difference\u201d campaign, which seeks $100 million to recruit and retain outstanding faculty, enhance the student-centered campus experience, provide undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships, and fund cutting-edge academic and research initiatives.<\/p>\n

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KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 13, 2007 — He is a 10th generation farmer who was one of the first Rhode Island growers to take the advice of a 溏心vlog免费B站 professor and switch from cultivating potatoes to cultivating turf. Now H. Winfield Tucker and his wife Phyllis are giving some advice of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}