KNOXVILLE–Board members of the Fred M. Roddy Foundation will make their annual visit to the University of Tennessee-Knoxville this weekend.
The foundation and an estate gift from the Blount County native and 1927 UT engineering graduate have provided more than $3.6 million for 4300 scholarships.
Foundation members here for a dinner and Saturday’s UT-Georgia football game will be Lee A. Kintzel and her husband, Roger, of Atlanta; David McIntyre, Attleboro, Mass.; Shawn Buckless, Smithfield, R.I.; and Peter Arnold and his wife, Sandy, and William Jennings and his wife, Audie, from Providence, R.I.
This marks the 27th year Roddy directors have visited UT-Knoxville. They come to campus to meet with the current scholarship recipients.
Roddy, a mechanical engineer who invented a machine for handling plastic, founded Cumberland Engineering Co. in Kingsport in 1939. He later moved it to New England, and the Attleboro firm remains a large supplier of machinery for plastic manufacturing.
When Roddy died in 1969, he left the university a bequest of $500,000 to create a scholarship endowment. Since 1972, foundation directors have voted annually to give additional grants to build the original endowment.
Their gifts fund three scholarship programs: four-year Roddy Merit Scholarships for superior academic achievement and leadership; Roddy One-Year Scholarships; and Roddy Upperclass Scholarships. The latter two are one-year awards that can be renewed.
This year, 123 students received Roddy scholarships. Recipients’ grade point averages are 3.75 on a scale of four.