As the youngest of five faculty children, Barry Hogenauer ’73 grew up on Westtown’s campus with his siblings Alice ’57, Dan ’59, Margaret ’61, and Sam ’64. Their father, Eugene “Gene” Hogenauer, taught German and Latin and coached tennis for 23 years at Westtown. Their mother, Mary Owsley Hogenauer, tutored Westtown students and served on the school’s History and Relics Committee (a precursor to our current Archives).
In 1991, the five Hogenauer children decided to establish an endowed fund to honor their parents’ service to and love of Westtown. As they considered the purpose of the fund, Barry recalled that during his senior year, several of his classmates—like him, the children of faculty and staff who had attended Westtown since Lower School—were no longer there. Even with partial tuition remission, the families could not afford to keep their children at Westtown. With this in mind, the family decided that The Eugene F. and Mary O. Hogenauer Fund would provide financial aid to the children of Westtown employees, with priority given to the children of non-teaching staff. Over the years, it has done exactly that.
Thirty years later, as Barry approached his 50th reunion, he wanted to jumpstart his class’s fundraising efforts. He donated two life insurance policies to the school—policies he had taken out many years earlier and the premiums for which were now being paid by the earnings on the principal. One of the policies will be added to The Eugene F. and Mary O. Hogenauer Fund to insure the Fund continues to grow. The other is the designated to The Class of 1973 Endowed Scholarship Fund, which was established in 2021 by a challenge gift of $50,000 from Jim and Frances (Twink) Wood (parents of Emily Wood Crofoot ’73). Members of the Class of 1973 surpassed that challenge with their own gifts, thereby exceeding the threshold of $100,000 required to create an endowed fund.
Barry is pleased that these life insurance policies—and their leveraged value—will benefit future generations of Westtown students, while also honoring his parents and his classmates. “Westtown is my foundation,” he says. “All that I have achieved in my life, I owe to my parents and my upbringing on the Westtown campus.”
Originally published in the 2022-2023 Annual Report
For general inquiries, please contact Dean of Advancement Ellen Urbanski at ellen.urbanski@westtown.edu