Tom Prunty is honoring his father’s legacy as a cattleman and educator by making a planned gift to The Emery L. “Bud” Prunty Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship supports West Virginia residents enrolled in the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design and majoring and in animal and nutritional sciences.
Alumnus Emery L. Prunty passed away in January 2016. Shortly after his passing, his wife of 57 years, Sharon Prunty, endowed the scholarship.
Tom Prunty was delighted to make WVU Foundation and his father’s scholarship the beneficiary of a life insurance policy as a planned gift. He hopes it will be an incentive for others to also invest in his father’s passion of promoting agricultural education.
“We would love for a student to have a full scholarship. It would help generations to come to focus on agriculture,” Prunty said. “Agriculture was a big part of our life growing up. My family and grandparents both raised cattle. It’s just something that I was born and raised into.”
Prunty aspires to give back the university as much as his father did as an agricultural educator.
The Prunty family bleeds gold and blue. Bud was a second generation Mountaineer. Tom graduated from the Davis College, and his daughter, Mary, graduated in May 2017.
Bud Prunty was involved in all levels of the industry. He was integral in starting the bull testing station in Wardensville, W.Va. and helped coach livestock judging teams. In 1959, he began his 32-year career with WVU Extension Service as an agent. He was a man that truly led by example and was quiet about his accomplishments.
“The university is always near and dear to our hearts,” he said. “My dad would have been smiling from ear to ear because giving back was important to him.”
The gift was made through the WVU Foundation, the nonprofit corporation that solicits and administers private donations on behalf of the University.