Contact:
Elizabeth Blevins, Director, Office of Communications
Office: (740) 351-3810; FAX: (740) 351-3179; Cell: (740) 464-4854
940 Second Street – Portsmouth, Ohio 45662
E-mail: eblevins@shawnee.edu 
Web site: www.shawnee.edu

             Dr. James H. Butt II of Columbia, Missouri, and Stephen P. Butt of Chillicothe, Ohio, have pledged $100,000 to the Shawnee State University Development Foundation for student scholarships in memory of their cousin Gurney Margaret Noel, who was an English teacher at Portsmouth High School and Ohio University. James and Stephen are brothers both born in Portsmouth, Ohio.
             “Gurney was a fixture in our family from my earliest years to my mid-teens when we moved away from Portsmouth,” Dr. Butt said. “She would have been pleased to have this memorial scholarship established in her name. She achieved an advanced education at a leading university at a time when women had just obtained the vote and such educational achievement was unusual for women.”
             Noel was a World War I Red Cross nurse in Italy, where she learned to speak fluent Italian and survived an attack of a deadly influenza pandemic. She was an acquaintance of Agnes von Kurowsky, another Red Cross nurse from Washington, D.C., who mentioned Noel in her diary (Ernest Hemingway, “Love and War: The Lost Diary of Agnes von Kurowsky” – a love story between Hemingway and Kurowsky). Kurowsky was a model for Catherine Barkley in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.
             After World War I, Noel moved to New York City, attended Columbia University, and achieved a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English in the early 1920s. She returned to Portsmouth and taught English for more than 30 years, first at PHS and later at Ohio University Portsmouth Branch. Noel died of congestive heart failure in 1963 at age 75 in her 1832 home on Scioto Trail.
             “The story of Gurney Margaret Noel demonstrates the potential for young students when they have access to education and are encouraged to explore new opportunities,” said Eric Braun, executive director of the SSU Development Foundation. “We are thrilled to share this scholarship and Ms. Noel’s experience with Shawnee State students.”
             Recipients of the Gurney Margaret Noel Memorial Scholarship must be a Scioto County resident and exhibit financial need. Student financial aid in the form of academic scholarships and awards, and need-based scholarships and loans helps SSU attract the best students and allow students who might otherwise not be afforded a college education to attend Shawnee State University.
             To learn about ways of giving to SSU, contact the Development Foundation at (740) 351-3284.