When Rick Howard ‘68 arrived in Burlington in 1964 as a first-generation university student, he experienced a massive cultural change from small-town Vermont. He says honestly, “I was overwhelmed at first. The jump from high school to college knocks many people off the rails and almost got me. It took me two to three years to sort myself out.”

Shock notwithstanding, Rick possessed an innate competitive drive that pushed him forward, despite the challenges. And UVM track coach Archie Post instilled discipline and gave Rick structure.

But even before coming to campus, it was the Wilbur Fund that made it possible for him to enroll at the University of Vermont. That scholar-ship helped him cover tuition. Even more, it changed the course of his life.

“Without the Wilbur Fund I would have been unable to attend UVM, and probably no college at all,” Rick said recently by email. “As it was, my UVM education started me on the road that led to a Ph.D. in chemistry, and that massively changed my life.”

Rick grew up in Vermont and was the first in his family to go to college. Finances were tight. He had offers from other schools, but UVM was the only path that made sense financially, with the Wilbur Fund scholarship bridging the gaps.

While navigating a new and somewhat bewildering environment on campus, he ran track and cross-country, picked up work-study jobs, and found mentors in classrooms where chemistry and math came alive.

As he was finishing his undergraduate degree, he had his sights on graduate school. That decision, he says, came straight from the confidence and momentum that UVM made possible. After UVM, Rick earned a doctorate in chemistry and built a career shaped by the habits he formed on the track and in the lab.

He also built a family culture that expects learning to continue. “I was the first in my family to attend college, and it broke a cycle,” he says. “The children of college graduates generally seek higher education, and their children, too. That first step is the hardest, and rewards genera-tions to come.”

Rick appreciates the history that shaped his own opportunity to come to UVM.

The Wilbur Fund began with a $1.5 million bequest from James B. Wilbur (at left in photo above) in 1929. A massive sum of money at the time, it has grown to a $27 million endowment today and provides more than a million dollars in scholarship support to students each year. That means thousands of graduates have been given the opportunity to succeed because of a small act of kindness nearly 100 years ago.

This knowledge informs Rick’s philanthropy today. He created the W.F. (Rick) Howard Scholarship to support students from Vermont who participate in the Track & Field and Cross-Country programs.

He remembers the lift he felt as a student-athlete who needed help to stay enrolled and stay focused. “I wanted to give athletes the nudge that keeps them moving forward,” he says. It’s one generous and consistent signal to students that the Catamount community believes in them.