 eroy Benner hailed from the oil spot township of Cravens, Louisiana, a community with a miniscule population smaller than many city neighborhoods. He eventually spent most of his life in Savannah working as an assistant to the owner of the Pierpont-Corbett Box Company. Following his death, the quiet, unassuming, wise investor left a large mark on his adopted city through a charitable gift to SCPS totaling nearly $1,000,000.
The financial mind of the partnership with owner Wallace Pierpont, Mr. Benner became acquainted with Savannah Christian Preparatory School through a school board member while handling Mr. Pierpont’s estate.
SCPS board members during the mid-1990’s recognized the need for a scholarship fund to help provide needs-based tuition assistance to students. Board members personally contributed donations of about $10,000 to start the fund. Mr. Benner, a life-long bachelor and member of Wesley Monumental UMC, heard about their efforts and began making contributions to the SCPS scholarship fund during his lifetime. He also made additional provisions for a charitable gift to SCPS from his estate following his death.
He left his entire estate in a trust to benefit his sister, with provisions that upon her death, a 20% portion of the trust would be given to the SCPS scholarship fund.
Mr. Benner died at age 89 in 2001. Upon the death of his sister, Mildred Benner Redmond in early 2005, SCPS received nearly $1,000,000 in a lump sum gift.
The gift exponentially increased the size of our scholarship fund to more than $1,220,000 in the summer of 2005. In addition to annual income from the Victoria Jenkins Fund, a percentage of the annual income from this fund will be used to provide monetary assistance to qualified SCPS students for generations to come.
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