Mike and Marge McCoy

Wartburg College has received a $2 million gift to preserve and deepen its roots in the Lutheran spiritual and intellectual tradition.

Mike and Marge McCoy, of Ellison Bay, Wis., have established the Mike and Marge McCoy Family Distinguished Chair in Lutheran Heritage and Mission with the largest outright, non-estate gift the college has received from an individual donor or couple. The gift is part of the college’s pending comprehensive campaign, “Transforming Tomorrow.”

The McCoys are parents of two Wartburg graduates, Matthew (1993) and Michele (1997). Mike McCoy, formerly executive vice president and chief financial officer at Hormel Foods Corporation, has held leadership roles on the Board of Regents, the President’s Advisory Council, and as national chair for Commission on Mission, the College’s strategic planning initiative. The McCoys are co-chairs of the Transforming Tomorrow Campaign and also have served on the Parents’ Advisory Committee.

“A chair in Lutheran Heritage has been a dream for Wartburg for at least the last 25 years,” said Mike. “It is the cornerstone of our mission from which to build.”

“I am so happy that the McCoys, themselves faithful Lutherans, found it within their generous hearts to establish this distinguished chair,” said President Darrel Colson.

Wartburg is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The Rev. Dr. Kathryn Kleinhans, professor of religion, will hold the McCoy Family Distinguished Chair, which is intended to support the four pillars of the college’s mission — leadership, service, faith, and learning — and strengthen its commitment to vocation.

“It’s a joy to teach at Wartburg College because Wartburg understands that its Lutheran identity is not just about the past but is about how we continue to educate students to make a difference in the world today,” Kleinhans said.

“Lutheran higher education, especially as it plays out at Wartburg College, is about the future, about preparing young people to discern and claim the callings that will transform them and transform tomorrow for all of us,” Colson said.

The McCoy family will be honored and the chair bestowed upon Kleinhans during a Reformation Day ceremony Thursday, Oct. 31, at 11:30 a.m. in the Wartburg Chapel. The Rev. Dr. Stanley N. Olson, president of Wartburg Theological Seminary, will give remarks.