{"id":47240,"date":"2017-06-02T20:35:08","date_gmt":"2017-06-02T20:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/?p=47240"},"modified":"2017-06-02T20:40:01","modified_gmt":"2017-06-02T20:40:01","slug":"47240","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/2017\/06\/02\/47240\/","title":{"rendered":"Strong Behind-the-Scenes Supporters"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
\u201cThree old-timers\u201d – The Egertsons and their 1930 Model A Ford Coupe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David Egertson and his wife, Edith, never attended Augsburg College, but their family ties and commitment to the Lutheran Church certainly explain their enthusiasm for the place.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was young, I wasn\u2019t interested in college, and as it turned out, I did fine without it,\u201d says David, a former railroad marketing executive whose extended family included several pastors and one bishop. \u201cThe idea of a Christian education meant a lot to my father, but he couldn\u2019t afford to attend college. If one of his kids expressed an interest in college, Dad encouraged and helped to send them to Augsburg. Three of my brothers and two of our children went there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>
David and Edith Egertson celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary in June 2016.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To honor their father\u2019s values, David\u2019s brother, Darrell Egertson \u201855, an Augsburg Regent Emeritus, established the Ernest S. Egertson Scholarship in 1992 to provide encouragement and financial assistance to students preparing for a Christian service vocation. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cChristian service was what my dad stood for, and that\u2019s what the family wants to honor,\u201d says David. \u201cDarrell and his wife Helga were the early supporters of the\u00a0scholarship, but Edith and I soon became involved. At first we made smaller contributions, but now that we\u2019re doing legacy planning, we want to include Augsburg College in our estate. Our Christian heritage means so much to us. We want to pass that along. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of my work, we moved around a lot\u2014we lived in seven cities and 12 different homes. Faith and church are the central focus of our life, so we always got involved with a Lutheran church.\u00a0We are charter members of the congregation where we now worship here in St. Louis. Edith was the first organist at this church and is still engaged in music, including singing in a church octet,\u201d he says. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Making lefse is an annual ritual for the Egertsons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Egertsons like that Augsburg is located in the heart of Minneapolis, where they once lived, and where students from all walks of life have the opportunity to be exposed to Christian faith and values that may influence them indirectly. \u201cWe hope the scholarship will help someone who couldn\u2019t go to college otherwise. The idea is to make a difference, and to us, this is a way of spreading the gospel,\u201d David says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Egertsons also like knowing that years from now, their endowment will change the life of someone they\u2019ve never met by offering them an education and exposing them to the possibilities of Christian service. As David puts it, \u201cTo us, the endowment is a gift that keeps on giving\u2014in perpetuity. That\u2019s the beauty of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Egertson and his wife, Edith, never attended Augsburg College, but their family ties and commitment to the Lutheran Church certainly explain their enthusiasm for the place. \u201cWhen I was young, I wasn\u2019t interested in college, and as it turned out, I did fine without it,\u201d says David, a former railroad marketing executive whose extended …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,6,3],"tags":[131,133,132,58,134,19],"class_list":["post-47240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donor-recognition","category-gift-announcements","category-giving","category-giving-to-augsburg","tag-david-egertson","tag-edith-egertson","tag-ernest-e-egertson-scholarship","tag-gift-announcement","tag-lutheran-church","tag-scholarship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47240"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47253,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47240\/revisions\/47253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/giving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}