Past SBU president donates $1M

Wayne Gott, past interim president of Southwest Baptist University, donated $1 million to the Bolivar school last week that will replenish its endowment fund.

The check was presented to SBU President C. Pat Taylor at a Board of Trustees meeting Feb. 10.

"Wayne has been a very generous donor to the university in the past, and we are grateful in these economic times to receive such a substantial, undesignated gift," Taylor said in a news release.

Gott and his family owned the Town and Country Supermarket chain in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. He has provided funds for SBU's Gott Educational Center and Gott Hall and was instrumental in founding and sustaining the school's campus in Salem, where he resides, according to the release.

Gott was interim president of the school 1991-92.