October 5, 1999
LAWRENCE -- A retired judge has given $20,000 to endow a scholarship fund for University of Kansas law students, Michael H. Hoeflich, dean of the School of Law, announced today.
Clayton Brenner, a retired Johnson County district judge, established the Judge Clayton and Cecile Goforth Brenner Scholarship in Law Fund with a cash gift to the Kansas University Endowment Association. Income from the fund will provide scholarships for deserving law students, based on merit.
"The Brenner gift is greatly welcome," Hoeflich said. "It will make it possible for deserving students to attend the law school. We are most grateful."
Brenner, who now lives in Marshalltown, Iowa, graduated from KU in 1928 with a law degree. While at KU, he met Cecile Goforth, who received a bachelor's in education degree in 1926. The couple married that year and remained wed for 68 years, until Cecile Brenner's death in 1994.
Clayton Brenner had a private law practice in Olathe before serving nine years as county attorney and a year as judge of the magistrate court. He was appointed district judge in 1950, a post he held for 19 years before retiring. He served as chair of the board of the First Methodist Church, as member and president of the Olathe School Board, and as president the Olathe Rotary Club.
Brenner now lives near his daughter, Dorothy Brenner Francis, who graduated from KU with a bachelor's degree in fine arts in 1948, and her family.
The Judge Clayton and Cecile Goforth Brenner Scholarship in Law Fund will be administered by the KU Endowment Association, an independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fund-management foundation for the University of Kansas. Founded in 1891, the KU Endowment Association is the oldest foundation of its type at a public university in the United States and one of the largest.
Story by Janet Majure