MU patron, graduate Drinko dies
Feb 01, 2008 @ 11:53 PM
By LEE ANN WELCH
The Herald-Dispatch
HUNTINGTON --
John D. Drinko, one of Marshall University's greatest benefactors and most well known graduates, died Jan. 30 in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 86.
The Marshall library is named for Drinko, but friends and colleagues say he was more than a just name on a building. He never did anything half-way. He appreciated hard work. He always remembered his roots. He never met a stranger.
Drinko, who was suffering from pneumonia, died Wednesday in Palm Springs, Calif., where he and his wife Elizabeth spent each winter before traveling to Huntington for the April symposium and honors convocation bearing their names.
From humble beginnings in St. Mary's, W.Va., Drinko entered Marshall College on an athletic scholarship, playing football and basketball for the famed Cam Henderson. When his mother put him on the bus for Huntington, he was wearing a flour-sack shirt.
By the time of his death Wednesday, Drinko had earned degrees from Marshall in political science and history, and The Ohio State University Law School, became a driving force at Baker Hostetler law firm in Cleveland, Ohio, and contributed multiple millions of dollars to not just his alma mater, but hospitals, museums, civic foundations and child care centers, said Dr. Alan Gould, executive director of the Drinko Academy for American Political Institutions and Civic Culture at Marshall University.
"Intellect alone will not get you anywhere," Drinko is quoted as saying in "John Deaver Drinko: A Man of Many Parts." "Hard work is what leads to a good living." The article was written by Gould, a friend of Drinko's for many years.
His financial means allowed him to provide the tools for others to succeed in life. After that, it was up to the individual.
"He was the most remarkable man I ever met," Gould recalled.
Marshall Dean of Libraries Barbara Winters said, "He was not just a benefactor, he was our friend. We all feel like we've lost a friend and mentor."
She said this successful attorney and businessman was, "a person of kindness, a person of intelligence and had a tremendous sense of humor."
The Huntington community will never know the full extent of Drinko's philanthropy, Winters said.
Gould noted his gifts were not strictly to the university, but to agencies such as the Huntington Museum of Art, the Carter Woodson Foundation and Barnett Child Care Center. He also assisted those who needed help for one thing or another, personally sending people to The Cleveland Clinic -- which to no surprise, he was a contributor -- and paying for their medical treatments.
"As the community is strengthened, so is Marshall," Gould quotes Drinko as saying.
Even as a poor boy growing up in St. Mary's, W.Va., Drinko was a giver, Gould said. People around him needing food would receive extra fish from his trot line.
He wasn't all about everyone knowing what he did, how much he gave and where the money went, Gould said.
"He worked behind the scenes," Gould said. "He wasn't interested in people knowing."
The contributions were not just to one area of the university, but spread across the institution. And gifts were made to other schools, including Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University and The Ohio State University, where the building housing the law school is named in his honor.
As a lawyer, he was the first attorney at the firm of Baker Hostetler in Cleveland to be the product of public higher education.
By 1969, he was it's executive partner and is credited with making it one of the country's 100 largest law firms with offices nationwide.
A child of the Great Depression, education was important to Drinko, both Gould and Winters said. In fact, early on in life, Drinko was self-taught in Latin and Greek.
"He credited education as to turning his life around," Winters said.
The Drinkos shared a love of Marshall, said Marshall President Stephen J. Kopp in a statement released Friday by the university. "They also shared a mutual belief in the power of higher education to change lives and reveal unseen futures for young people."
Education and hard work were highly valued by John Deaver Drinko. At Marshall, he studied, played varsity athletics, worked at the A&P (store) and maintained "A" level grades, Gould said. In law school, his life was much the same, but without sports and working for a trucking company as a weight recorder, and graduated in the top of his class.
He also personally made higher education available to many students with the St. Mary's High School Scholarship Program, Gould said.
A world traveler, Drinko had a way of remembering people and events in their lives. "He was more interested in talking about you than himself," Winters said.
Gould tells the story of how when Drinko met a new person, he would reach out to shake your hand and say, "Hi, I'm John Drinko. Who are you and what do you do?" There was no difference in meeting champions of industry or the wait staff of a local restaurant. He wanted to know about your life.
There were times tips to waiters and waitresses were so generous, they would return to the table and tell him it must be a mistake," Gould said. Drinko would assure them it was not.
"Anyone who ever worked knows what it's like," Gould quoted Drinko as saying. As a young boy in rural West Virginia, Drinko was the main support for his family by the age of nine and held jobs coal mining and driving trucks. The story is also told of bear wrestling at county fairs to earn money, Gould said.
Everywhere Drinko would go, domestically or internationally, he promoted Marshall University and West Virginia.
In fact, Gould said he regularly sends out books and DVDs about Marshall University to people Drinko has met around the globe.
"He never stopped being a West Virginian," Winters said.
When April rolls around and it is time for the annual Drinko Symposium and the Elizabeth Gibson Drinko Honors Convocation, he will be missing, and "it will be quite different," Winters said.
"He was a man of extraordinary intellect, generosity and distinction," Kopp also said in his statement. "His humble beginnings in rural West Virginia amid impoverished circumstances taught him lessons that forever shaped and inspired his life and career. Dr. Drinko was truly a giant among men renowned for his brilliance, principle and resolve. His life accomplishments rank him among the greatest alumni of Marshall University."
"People like (John Deaver Drinko) are a dying breed," Gould said. "We should appreciate what they've done for us."
