USERY FOUNDATION PRESENTS $4 MILLION GIFT TO GEORGIA MILITARY COLLEGE
Future students attending GMC’s Prep School were presented with a gift in memory of The Honorable W.J. “Bill’ Usery. New students will have their financial burden eased as they purchase their initial uniforms, thanks to a generous fund honoring the memory of Secretary Usery. On March 24, Georgia Military College announced the establishment of the Usery Legacy Fund during GMC Prep School’s Usery Celebration. Doug Henne, the Executive Director of the Usery Foundation, was in attendance and announced a gift of $4,000,000 to be paid over the next two years to establish the fund. This fund honors, commemorates, and celebrates the life of The Honorable W.J. “Bill” Usery, Jr., who was a distinguished GMC Prep School alumnus, and former United States Secretary of Labor. Mr. Usery passed away in December of 2016.
“That was the legacy he wanted to leave GMC,” said Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell, IV, President of GMC. “He deeply loved the Prep School students and wanted to afford them the same opportunities he received with its core values of Duty, Honor, Country, and Character Above All.”
The Usery Legacy Fund is inspired by the actions of Secretary Usery’s mother, Effie Mae Williamson Usery, who left her job as a nurse to become a laundress at Central State Hospital to ensure that her son would have a clean, pressed GMC cadet uniform every morning. The proceeds of this endowment will significantly defray the costs of the initial school uniform requirement, eliminate a financial barrier, and honor Secretary Usery’s own personal experience of having worn a patched uniform while he was a student at GMC’s Prep School.