Quick facts about the Barker gift to JSMA

Quick Facts: $1 million endowment gift to the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon

Donor: The California-based Coeta and Donald Barker Foundation has created an endowment in keeping with wishes expressed by Coeta shortly before her death in 2005. She established the foundation in 1977 with her husband, the late Eugene business leader Donald R. Barker '42. Foundation trustees include Vernon Gleaves, a Eugene attorney and friend of the Barkers.

Impact:
• The gift creates a permanent funding source to help cover costs associated with bringing nationally significant traveling exhibitions to the museum. In 2005, the university completed a $14.2 million project that expanded and fully modernized the museum to meet the requirements of such exhibits.

• The Barker gift is among lead contributions toward the museum's goal of building a $7.5 million endowment that will provide stable, ongoing support for museum operations and programs.

• The museum has named its 4,000-square-foot changing exhibitions gallery for the Barkers in recognition of the gift's significance to the university, the local community and the state.

About the Barkers' UO connection
Donald and Coeta established the Donald R. Barker Foundation in 1977 while living in Eugene. The trustees renamed the foundation after he died in 1980.

Donald grew up in Portland, Ore., and studied law at the University of Oregon. He owned Eugene-based timber, export, automobile and investment companies.

Through the foundation, Donald and Coeta supported the Duck Athletic Fund, Casanova Center Athletic Center Fund, track and field programs, Hayward Field improvements, expansion of football facilities, the Howe Field renovation, and construction of the Knight Law Center. They also gave to the Oregon Bach Festival, education programs in music and art, the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, the Summer Enrichment Program, KWAX-FM, and the UO Children's Choir.

After Donald died in 1980, Coeta moved to Rancho Mirage, Calif., where she became a major supporter of several local health, education and arts organizations. In 1996, at her direction, the foundation established the Coeta and Donald Barker Foundation Environmental Studies Scholarship Endowment in the UO College of Arts and Sciences. She also was a major donor to the renovation and expansion of the UO art museum.