McCurley Scholarship Fund Marks 20th Anniversary

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Posted by: Janet Branham 10 months ago

After Huntington native Gary McCurley passed away in 1998, his parents, Ken and Dottie, wanted to memorialize their son by establishing a legacy in his name. In 2004, they set up the Gary W. McCurley Scholarship through the Community Foundation of Huntington County. The McCurleys worked with the Foundation to craft scholarship criteria that fit Gary’s lifelong interests. As 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Gary’s scholarship, we wanted to share the story behind the name on the scholarship.

Gary was a 1975 graduate of Huntington North and attended what is now St. Peter’s First Community Church in his youth. He went on to obtain undergraduate, law, and MBA degrees from Indiana University. Gary was a co-founder and partner in Legacy Capital Company, a Dallas-based real estate investment company. He previously had been a partner at nationally known commercial real estate services firm Trammell Crow Company, and before that an attorney at law firm Gardere & Wynne, both in Dallas. Gary was a member of both the Indiana State Bar Association and the State Bar of Texas. The pursuit of business or law studies, acceptance into Indiana University, and active membership in a Christian church are all preferences for McCurley Scholarship candidates. To this day, the McCurleys review the applications themselves and provide the foundation with valuable guidance into who they believe Gary would have chosen. Additional donations to the fund by family members have increased the scholarship’s impact over time. In addition to his parents, Gary is survived by his sisters, Sherry (McCurley) Slater and Kathy (McCurley) Salzmann, who both reside in Fort Wayne.

In a letter written in 2008, Ken and Dottie described their son as “a person who loved children but never was blessed with any of his own. He would buy bicycles for children who had none and clothes and toys for others.” Now, 26 years after his passing, Gary’s love for young people lives on through his annual scholarship.