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A SALUTARY INFLUENCE November the Longwood Foundation of Wilmington, Delaware, made a $675,000 challenge grant, which the College was required to match in about eighteen months, for the construction of a life science building. The trustees formally resolved to meet the challenge, and in June 1965 Trustee Ralph W. McCreary presented the College with a gift then valued at $700,000 which the foundation accepted as meeting the challenge.29 During the next several years the College conducted a difficult campaign to raise money for Old Dorm, whose renovation was obviously going to cost far more than the first estimate of $350,000. Only the most minor repairs had been made on the old building for some years; it would soon have to be modernized or removed. Efforts to secure the major foundation gift which the 1963 development plan projected to cover the costs of renovation were unavailing, although several large and many small gifts were received. Finally, in September 1968, with less than half the needed amount in hand, the trustees authorized the work to begin and borrowing from reserves to help pay for it. Thanks to the almost constant campaign efforts, by the early 1970s the College had built most of the new buildings and renovated most of the existing ones which were included in the 1959 campaign statement. In September 1972 the board boldly committed itself to yet another long-range plan, this one to culminate with the College sesquicentennial in 1982. The first draft of this plan called for a goal of $18,500,000, but once again fund raisers and others had immediate and serious doubts about its feasibility. Consequently, the trustees decided in January 1973 to appeal for funds for a new library, a new facility for the creative and performing arts, and renovation of space vacated once these facilities were available. Although their cost estimate for these plans was about $5,000,000, they decided not even to announce that figure immediately. In fact, pleading recession, dissatisfaction within the constituency, and other reasons, on four occasions during the next several years the other charitable purposes, both in Adams county and elsewhere. After his death, chiefly through the Emma G. Musselman Foundation, his widow greatly expanded the family's philanthropic activities, from which Gettysburg College benefited on frequent occasions. Beginning in 1954, gifts from the Musselman Foundation and the Emma G. Musselman Foundation supported scholarships, music, theater arts, visiting scientists and business executives, as well as a new stadium, field house, and library. Apart from synodical contributions, these two foundations contributed more to the College between 1945 and 1985 than any other single source. See "Fruits of Success, The Musselman Legacy," GCB (August 1981), pp. 1-3. 29As an article in the July 1965 GCB made clear, the gift was in the form of 7,000 shares of McCreary Tire and Rubber Company preferred stock. Since one of its conditions required the College to retain the stock to a date beyond the time of this writing, the ultimate actual value of the gift is not yet known. 76