A radio report about the importance of having a will grabbed our attention last week. The report noted that more and more people are recording “ethical wills” for posterity, stories of their life and their thoughts about their values and the legacies they want to leave behind — “what it is you want people to remember about your life and what you think is important.”
All of which segues perfectly into this week’s issue with its stories about Arkansas’ business icons and the $15 million donation to Arkansas Children’s Northwest hospital, the largest in the history of Arkansas Children’s Hospital. The Tyson family and Tyson Foods joined together to make the gift, the largest in what has become a series of million-dollar and multimillion-dollar pledges from northwest Arkansas benefactors and businesses that now total $45.5 million. Lives will be saved once this hospital is built.
The state’s business icons also have been generous with their gifts, financial and personal, making Arkansas immeasurably richer. Some have given to traditional worthy causes: health care, education, the arts. Alice Walton and the Walton family have created a remarkable cultural landmark and economic driver in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, open to all without charge because of a $20 million gift from Wal-Mart.
Some, like Johnny Allison, take pride in having used their gifts to enrich others. His talent for banking has been “extremely rewarding to me because we’ve made so many people wealthy. We’ve educated kids, we’ve paid off homes, we’ve secured retirement for hundreds and hundreds of Arkansans.”
Even among Arkansas Business’ largely affluent readers, few have the resources to make million-dollar donations, but many of our readers are business owners and employers, and every job they provide supports an individual or a family.
So what do you want to be remembered for?