Belton, Texas – University of Mary Hardin-Baylor officials announced today that the Paul and Jane Meyer Family Foundation has made a gift of $700,000 for the construction of the university’s new performing arts center.
“Jane Meyer’s commitment to Christian higher education, coupled with her generous heart, has made her one of UMHB’s greatest champions,” said Dr. Randy O’Rear, president of the university. “When she learned that we had the opportunity to qualify for a challenge grant that would allow us to complete the new center debt free, she wanted to be a part of the effort. She is an amazing lady, and we are truly grateful for her continued investment in Mary Hardin-Baylor.”
The family foundation’s gift for the Sue & Frank Mayborn Performing Arts Center is but the latest of a series of significant gifts to the university. In 2003, Paul and Jane Meyer made the lead gift for the Paul and Jane Meyer Christian Studies Center, which houses UMHB’s College of Christian Studies; in 2011, Jane Meyer again stepped forward with the lead gift for a state-of-the-art nursing education center, which was named in memory of Paul’s mother, Isabelle Rutherford Meyer, who was an educator and nurse.
In gratitude for this latest gift, the building’s 2,000-square-foot rehearsal hall will carry the Meyer name. The Paul & Jane Meyer Rehearsal Hall will serve as both a classroom and a rehearsal space for theatrical and musical productions. The room’s dimensions mirror the dimensions of the stage in the nearby performance hall so that students will be able to practice for upcoming productions there as easily as they would be able to on the stage.
The Meyer Family Foundation gift moves the university significantly closer to its goal of completing the terms of a challenge grant offered by an anonymous donor in June 2016, which required the university to raise $5 million in gifts toward the project by August 31, 2017.
The Sue & Frank Mayborn Performing Arts Center is a 40,725-square-foot building that features a 525-seat performance hall with a proscenium stage, fly space, and orchestra pit. The ingenious design of the center includes many multifunctional rooms which allow it to be used as a teaching facility as well as a venue for musical and theatrical performances. Located near the entrance of the campus on the corner of Main Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, the $20 million center is in its final stages of completion and will be formally dedicated at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on October 13.
