UA Alumna Establishes $1.5 Million Endowment For English And Creative Writing

FAYETTEVILLE, ARK. - Journalists Ellen Roper and the late Jim Roper of Washington, D.C., spent their lives reporting on many of the 20th century’s most memorable events, from the demise of Mussolini and the end of World War II to President Kennedy’s funeral and Watergate. Both also admired the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright.

As the 21st century begins, Ellen Roper has decided to honor the memory of her husband, the University of Arkansas, and the Fulbright legacy by establishing the James E. and Ellen Wadley Roper Endowment in the department of English.

The $1.5 million charitable remainder unitrust she has funded will provide graduate fellowships in creative writing, Chancellor's Scholarships in English, and two endowed professorships, one in English and one in creative writing.

During Mrs. Roper’s lifetime, the unitrust will provide substantial tax and economic benefits, allowing her to fund the trust with appreciated securities, which can then be sold without capital gains tax and invested in a stream of income for her lifetime; the gift also generates an immediate income tax deduction and eliminates the assets from estate taxes.

UA Chancellor John A. White said, "To realize the UA goal of enhancing and developing programs of excellence, it is essential that our strongest programs remain strong. Through her generosity, Ellen Roper has ensured a very bright future for our English and creative writing programs. It is encouraging to all members of the UA family when alumni honor their alma mater in such tangible ways, ways that benefit the faculty, staff, and future generations of students."

Ellen Roper met her future husband in 1958, while both were working for the Washington bureau of CBS News. A native of Tennessee, Jim Roper went to Washington in 1937 to work for United Press. As a war correspondent, he was sent overseas in 1942, his assignments taking him from Iceland and North Africa to London to cover the bombing of the city.

Mr. Roper broke the story to the world about the death of Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci. "Jim got the first details of Mussolini’s arrest, trial, death before the firing squad, and the carting of the body with a vanload of other Fascist dead, which were dumped in Milan’s public square," said Mrs. Roper. "He arrived in Loreto Square in time to witness the cursing and kicking of the dead bodies."

On April 29, 1945, newspapers around the world carried Mr. Roper’s story, which began "The people Benito Mussolini had ruled for two decades paid him their last tribute by hanging his remains head down from the rafters of a gasoline station in Milan’s Loreto Square."

After the war, Mr. Roper covered the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the United Nations. In the 1950s, he joined the Washington Evening Star to cover foreign affairs. As news editor of the CBS News Washington bureau, from 1956 to 1960, he covered the State Department. In 1960, Mr. Roper turned to freelance writing, becoming a regular contributor to Reader’s Digest and other publications. Until 1997, he wrote a weekly report on tax court decisions for Newhouse newspapers. Mr. Roper died in 1998.

Mrs. Roper considered many venues by which to honor her husband’s memory. "At first I didn’t consider the University of Arkansas, because Jim had no connection there," she said. "Then I thought of Fulbright. Since we were both great admirers of his, I realized the U of A was the perfect place." Fulbright had helped Mrs. Roper and her former classmate Lynnette Wilson obtain jobs with the U.S. State Department after they graduated from the UA department of journalism in 1945.

Mrs. Roper added, "The English language mattered a great deal to Jim. He felt it was abused daily. I thought that I could help with this gift by dropping a pebble in the pool. So one day I picked up the phone and dialed the University switchboard. I told the operator I wanted to talk to someone about leaving money to the University."

"With this gift, we can be sure that our highly regarded English department and its nationally

ranked program in creative writing will achieve the same eminence in non-fiction writing that it has received in criticism, fiction, poetry and translation. The endowed chairs and scholarships will draw the best new faculty and writers to the department," said Randall Woods, interim dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Mrs. Roper traveled to Europe in 1945, working first at the U.S. Embassy in London and then later as a writer-broadcaster at a U.S. Air Force radio station in Wiesbaden, Germany. After returning to the United States in 1947, she was a writer and assistant producer for radio station WTOP in Washington. In 1951 she became assistant to the director of special events at CBS News in Washington.

"I loved that job, but hunger prevailed," said Mrs. Roper, so she became a writer and network contact for the American National Red Cross until 1953, when she and Lynnette Wilson formed Wilson-Wadley Enterprises, a public relations firm in Washington.

From 1958 until she retired in 1984, Mrs. Roper served as a producer for the Washington bureau of CBS News. She co-produced the TV program Face the Nation and produced the radio programs Capitol Cloakroom, The Leading Question, and Washington Week.

Robert Cochran, interim chair of the department of English, added, "The Roper Endowment is wonderful news for the English department. We are profoundly grateful to Ellen Roper for this generous expression of her confidence in us, and we will work very diligently to repay her trust."

In funding UA creative writing and English studies, Mrs. Roper supports two programs dedicated to excellence in writing, as she and her husband were throughout their careers. U.S. News & World Report has ranked the UA creative writing program 16th in the nation. The writer-teachers in the department of English have published widely and won numerous awards, from National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities grants to Guggenheims, Stegners, PEN/Faulkner nominations, and a coveted Landon Prize in translation. In the past five years, faculty have published 40 full-length, scholarly and creative works.

Student accomplishments are impressive as well. In the past two years, the program has produced four student winners of the Truman Capote Fellowship, and several have won national writing competitions and prizes. The B.A. degree in English, cited for Academic Program Excellence by the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, continues to be one of the most productive programs at the University.
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