SALINA, Kan. (AP) - A Salina woman has left more than $300,000 to support a festival that runs in the central Kansas town where she’s lived for about three decades.
Jeri Sparks, who died in March, left a $321,975 bequest from her trust fund to the Smoky Hill River Festival, The Salina Journal reported (https://j.mp/2ipBoSp). The festival, which runs in the summer, includes live music and other entertainment.
“The River Festival embodied her whole personality,” her sister, Nancy Groth said Thursday after a brief ceremony at the Greater Salina Community Foundation announcing Sparks’ bequest. “The fine arts, the sounds, the tastes, the feelings. She loved it.”
Sparks, who moved to Salina in 1986, graduated from Brown Mackie College in 1988 and worked for Brown Welding Supply as a staff accountant and payroll clerk and continued in various administrative capacities after Airgas USA bought Brown.
She was diagnosed with cancer in 2013.
Groth, who lives in Satanta in southwest Kansas, attended the festival in 2014 and could tell her sister loved listening to the live music from her porch.
In spring 2014, Sparks visited with Brad Anderson, Salina Arts & Humanities director after the Festival Legacy Fund was established and told him she thought the festival was a wonderful celebration of community that she wanted to support. Anderson said the Legacy Fund is one of the funds included in the Greater Salina Community Foundation, which he said has slightly less than $200 million in assets.
“I can’t tell you how much this gift means to the community and the River Festival,” Anderson said at the ceremony. “The proceeds from her gift will help shape our festival for many years to come.”
A bench in honor of Sparks will be placed in Oakdale Park in time for the 2017 River Festival in June.
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Information from: The Salina (Kan.) Journal, https://www.salina.com
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