From Deseret News archives:
Institutions are debating how to handle Lay charity
"Garden Court given by Linda and Ken Lay Family" reads the small blue marker just outside the Aspen Music Festival and School's award-winning performance hall nestled among aspen trees, well-manicured lawns and wide-open meadows.
The philanthropic deeds of Lay, who died of a heart attack in Aspen earlier this month, and the spectacular collapse of the company he founded, Enron Corp., have institutions and organizations questioning where their appreciation of good deeds ends and their detachment from genuinely bad ones begins.
Lay's alma mater, the University of Missouri, is debating what to do with its endowed Kenneth L. Lay Chair in Economics, created by his donation of more than $1 million in Enron stock that the university sold before the company collapse. The professorship has not been filled.
Officials running the 40,000-seat stadium for the Houston Astros repaid Enron $2.1 million to sponge the corporation's soiled name from the ballpark. They went so far as to tape over Enron's name on a clock face at the stadium, which eventually was renamed Minute Maid Park.
"We're not going to make a comment on this. It's a private board matter and we prefer not to say anything," said Aspen Music Festival and School spokeswoman Janice Szabo. She noted the garden court outside the Benedict Music Tent was dedicated to the Lays in 2000, a year before Enron became a worldwide emblem of corporate malfeasance.
Ask a once-faithful Enron employee about whether the Aspen Music Festival and School ought to keep the Lay name, and the response is straight to the point.
"I'm not too much in favor of it myself. Look at what he's done to us," said Charles Prestwood, 67, who reportedly lost $1.3 million in retirement savings after Enron went bankrupt.
Each month, Prestwood said, he barely pays his bills with the Social Security checks he receives. "He stole all of our money. . . . It is real easy to give someone else's money away."
Prestwood said he began working for Houston Natural Gas in March 1967. In 1985, Houston Natural Gas merged with Omaha, Neb.-based InterNorth to form Enron. In October 2000, Preston retired just as Enron began its fall.
Comments
- Tuesday on TV 12:13 a.m.
- 'Dancing' will fill out finale 12:13 a.m.
- I'll take doc's advice on mammogram 12:12 a.m.
- Editorial: Winning fans' hearts 12:11 a.m.
- Afterthoughts 12:11 a.m.
- Letters: Barzee case like Jeffs' 12:11 a.m.
- Letters: Trump card for believers 12:11 a.m.
- Letters: Can't erase genetics 12:11 a.m.
- Letters: Rushing to judge Palin 12:11 a.m.
- Letters: MLS not BCS 12:11 a.m.
- Real Champions
- Bronco, Kyle rubber match
- Protests against Phoenix LDS temple
- BYU's Lamb, Jorgensen reprimanded
- Plenty on line for rivalry game
- Time for big matchups in WAC, MWC
- RSL wins MLS Cup on penalty kicks
- BCS at-large bids up for grabs
- Hall, Johnson matchup key
- Fans greet returning Real Salt Lake
- Glenn Beck to enter politics?
213 - RSL wins MLS Cup on penalty kicks
195 - Palin plans tour stop in Utah
178 - Palin's book shows she's unqualified
133 - BYU records with win
132 - Bronco, Kyle rubber match
131 - Protests against Phoenix LDS temple
109 - Officer cleared in Cardall Taser case
103 - BYU cuts Women's Research Inst.
103 - Jazz finally win in San Antonio
99
Jared Quayle is a stud. He plays like a beast every time he touches the...
No Phx is not a majority LDS city Mesa is. As far as Tom's comment about...
Lest my Utah friends think I was just going to bang on my own, I think UteFan...
You can read the official declaration online via a photo of the original....
"McFeatters states that what Palin is doing, and doing brilliantly, is being...
don't mean to pick on you but fans from both sides make it easy to despise...
Nick Paulos is a great shooter, and Connor Brady's decent. But Provo and Kyle...
Explain this to me. He claims a utah fan ran on the field and threw a CUP of...
The International Center for Religion and Diplomacy mentioned in this article...
BYU doesn't have to make the U sound anti-Mormon, it's a fact; there is a...




You can be the first to comment on this story.