Centralia College Receives $250,000 Donation

Posted

    Not two weeks after the estate of Max and Thelma Baxter donated a quarter-million dollars to the Providence Health Care Foundation, another local institution found itself the recipient of an equally generous gift.

    The Centralia College Foundation welcomed the Baxters’ niece, Gayle Lucas of Tacoma, and family attorney Ralph Olson to the college where Olson presented a $250,000 check to the Foundation Monday afternoon. The Baxters donated the money as part of a series of donations to various community groups in the city of Centralia, where the two retired after a long career as owners of the Tacoma-based Baxter Manufacturing Co.

    “The college, the hospital — all these places meant so much to my aunt but you never would have known it if you talked to her,” Lucas said of Thelma Baxter. “She was very quiet, but she knew the need in the community and wanted to help out without making it known at all.”

    The donation will serve a twofold purpose: $125,000 of the money will go toward the construction of the TransAlta Student Center and the other half will be placed in the Centralia College Foundation’s general scholarship fund. Foundation President Julie Johnson expressed her gratitude for the gift, saying the money comes during tough economic times when many students are finding a rough go of raising funds for tuition.

    “With the staff budgets being cut and probably a 10 percent tuition raise going in next year, this gift will give some very deserving students financial help they will need,” Johnson said. “This is a gift we are most certainly grateful for, and it will keep giving.”

    Thelma Baxter had passed away April 2010, and was preceded in death by her husband Max in 1998. Max Baxter had founded Baxter Manufacturing, a company that made commercial ovens, in Tacoma in 1958, selling the company to Troy, Ohio-based Hobart Corporation in 1997.

    After retiring, the Baxters lived on property at the end of Goodrich Road north of Centralia, with Max turning it into a small ranch he dubbed “Flying T” in honor of his wife. The property is now occupied by the Centralia Wastewater Treatment Facility.



    Lucas and Olson both shared anecdotes about the Baxters, especially their sense of privacy, with Lucas saying her aunt went to great lengths to maintain her low profile.

    “She’d sit there and shred all her documents and photos she still had,” Lucas said, noting the Baxters had no children of their own, “and I mean everything, just before she passed away. It was amazing.”

    Olson recalled how the Baxters met at a grocery store in Portland, Ore., that Max owned. Thelma walked in and asked for help — “and they were together ever after that,” Olson said.

    “It is truly amazing how something with such a humble beginning can blossom into an event like today,” Olson said. “They succeeded in life and kept a low profile, and yet wanted to benefit so many others.”

•••

    Christopher Brewer: (360) 807-8235, Twitter.com/iamchrisbrewer