A Family's NWU Legacy

When Karen Ricker (’71) made the decision to include a gift to Nebraska Wesleyan University in her will, she knew she was cementing her family’s NWU legacy—a legacy born eight decades ago through a series of serendipitous events.

The Ricker family had its roots on the East Coast. Karen’s father, Richard (’39), worked for a Goodyear company in Hudson, Massachusetts. He was about a year out of high school and could not afford to go to college—or so he thought until fate intervened. A man at his church camp told him he should go to Nebraska Wesleyan University and offered to pay for his first year’s tuition (which, back then, was $75).

So Richard Ricker hitched a series of rides on Goodyear trucks across the country to Nebraska. He arrived on the corner of 48th Street and Saint Paul Avenue with only a single suitcase.

Richard graduated with a degree in psychology and went on to seminary. After seminary, he served 29 years as a chaplain in the U.S. Navy, ashore and afloat through WWII Korea and Vietnam.

When Karen was eight years old, her father received his honorary doctorate in divinity from Nebraska Wesleyan. Karen remembers visiting the NWU campus from their home in Illinois. She and her brother explored the NWU campus with an admissions counselor.

“Everyone made us feel important,” she recalled. “I knew from that day that I was going to Nebraska Wesleyan. Period.”

Sure enough, when it was time to go to college, she packed her bags and came back to NWU. She didn’t have a doubt in the world.

Karen graduated with a degree in education and went on to teach physical education for 38 years, including 32 years at Lincoln’s Morley Elementary School. She was named the Nebraska Elementary Teacher of the Year, the NASPE Central District Teacher of the Year (9-state region) and was one of six finalists for the National Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year.

Her brother, with whom she explored the NWU campus as a child, is now an instructor of music at Nebraska Wesleyan, specializing in the French horn. Their parents ended up coming back to Lincoln when they retired, staying here for the rest of their lives.

“I figured my whole career was due to NWU,” she said about her decision to leave NWU in her will. “I got a job right out of college, and Wesleyan gave me my start and taught me well. I was studying education, but at Wesleyan I could do so many other things—athletics, political groups, honor societies—you could do it all. An NWU education broadens you.”

“I know that it’s difficult for many people to go to college,” she continued, “and I want future generations to go to NWU because it’s just such a great school.”

Just as that benefactor did for her father, Karen will help future generations of students receive a Nebraska Wesleyan education.