MUNCIE, Ind. -- The Ball State University College of Business and the College of Sciences and Humanities will benefit from a scholarship established in honor of a former university instructor and his wife.

Robert H. Myers Jr., professor emeritus of marketing at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, has expanded a scholarship originally in memory of his mother, Clyda Alice Myers, to include the name of his father, Robert Henry Myers Sr.

“My parents were terrific people. My father had such an outstanding career that most people would not believe it and mother was a marvelous mother,” said Myers.

The late Robert Myers was the son of immigrants and completed only an eighth-grade education before beginning three different careers.

As am employee of Merchants National Bank & Merchants Trust Company, now Merchants National Bank and Old National Bank, he was on the board of directors and became the senior vice president.

At the same time he worked as advertising manager at Kuhner Packing Company, where he developed the trade slogan for Kuhner meats.

Soon after, he became a full colonel in the U.S. Army with the 10th Army in the Pacific during WWII. Later, he worked as staff at the Command & General Staff School in Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Upon medical discharge from the military, Myers Sr. participated in a program for Army veterans with no high school diplomas to earn high school degrees with testing. He earned his diploma from Burris School in Muncie.

Later, he tested to enter the University of Chicago and entered at the junior level where he received his master’s and doctorate degrees.

He then became an instructor of finance and marketing at Ball State. Along with his contributions to academia, he served in the local community as president of the Muncie Chamber of Commerce.

Myers Sr. also began the fund-raising efforts for the statue of Beneficence, now a primary symbol of Ball State. He was the master of ceremonies at the dedication of Beneficence in 1937.

“I’m immensely proud of my dad. My hero in life was my dad, he was amazing and charismatic, especially coming from modest parents,” said Myers.

The scholarship will provide assistance to juniors or seniors in the College of Business and the College of Sciences and Humanities who possess the same qualities and interests as Clyda Alice and Robert Henry Myers Sr.

NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information, contact Stephen Thomas by e-mail at sthomas@bsu.edu or by phone at (765) 285-8312.)