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The gift will create the largest endowed scholarship at the school with the resources to fund six full-tuition awards on an annual basis.
A Saint Xavier High School alum has bequeathed a large sum to help fund scholarships.
The estate of Robert (Bob) Burckel, class of ’57 and long-time St. X benefactor, has left the private Catholic school a bequest of more than $1.5 million, according to a news release. The gift will create the largest endowed scholarship at the school with the resources to fund six full-tuition awards on an annual basis.
Burckel died on Dec. 10, 2023, just shy of his 85th birthday. During his career he often reflected on the formative influence of his St. X education and the dedicated commitment of the Xavierian Brothers, the release said. That commitment is the reason he and his brother Nick, class of ’61, created an endowment to honor their parents. The Arthur and Irene Burckel Scholarship Fund supports need-based access and diversity to make a St. X education more widely available.
Burckel received a National Merit Scholarship to attend the University of Notre Dame. In his first year, he won the Borden Freshman Prize for the student with the highest academic average across all disciplines – the first student with a science-related major to win the award. He graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of science degree in Mathematics from Notre Dame in 1961. He then began his graduate education at Yale University on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and spent a year with his mentor at UC Berkeley.
After completing his PhD, he started his academic career at the University of Oregon, moving to Kansas State University in 1971. He served as acting department head for a year and was promoted to full professor in 1980.
“It is St. X alumni like Bob and Nick Burckel who will propel a Xaverian education into parts of our community where people never dreamed such an education was possible,” President Paul D. Colistra said in the release. “We have the Burckel brothers to thank for their foresight in making scholarship support their top priority.”
In other recent news, I reported in late November that St. X. launched a campaign to fund a new $6 million football center on its 54-acre campus at 1609 Poplar Level Road. The new facility will be named in honor of 1982 alumnus and former NFL All-Pro Will Wolford, and feature locker rooms for over 220 football athletes, meeting spaces and offices for coaches, equipment storage and private shower rooms. It will also include a dressing room for the freshman physical education program, which serves over 300 students annually, according to a news release.
Also, just for fun, you can check out our recent feature in which we asked several local business people where they attended high school. St. X has one famous alum in that feature.
St. X., a historic institution sponsored by the Xaverian Brothers since 1864, ranks among the largest private high schools in Louisville with about 1,120 students. It has about 160 full-time faculty and staff, as well as some seasonal and part-time staffers.
Enrollment in grades 9-12: 2024-25
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