KNOXVILLE — The $250,000 gift of a Georgia businessman will provide scholarships for civil and co-operative engineering students at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
The gift will establish the Kenneth E. Boring Civil Engineering Co-operative Scholarship Endowment fund to provide full-tuition scholarships for undergraduate students who receive them, Dr. Jerry Stoneking, dean of engineering, said.
Boring, a UT civil engineering graduate, is chairman of the board of Hardwick Holding Co. of Dalton, Ga., and of First National Bank of Northwest Georgia. He is a native of Blount County.
The scholarships will go to students in the co-operative work-study program who are in civil engineering or areas related to the construction industry, Jeff Lorber, the college’s director of development, said.
Boring worked for Lambert Brothers Corp. in Maryville, a crushed stone manufacturing company, before serving in World War II. When he returned from military service, he entered UT and graduated in 1950.
He returned to Lambert’s after graduation, and with this brother, James, purchased a crushed stone plant in Dalton. The business grew to five plants — three in Georgia and two in Tennessee — before being purchased by Vulcan Materials in 1985.
UT-Knoxville’s co-operative engineering program is one of the oldest in the nation, and it currently serves more than 400 students.
In addition to his support of UT, Boring helped establish the Boring Outpatient Center at Hamilton Medical Center in Dalton.