Kearney
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We probably don’t need to remind you that good news has been hard to come by these past six months.
So the announcement that Virginia-based accounting firm Kearney & Company, founded and run by King’s College alumnus Ed Kearney, is donating $1 million to King’s, is exactly the kind of encouraging development we all want to hear right now.
It’s a reminder not just that altruism is alive and well, but that we as a society need to keep our eyes on those goals which help move us back toward a healthy, fully functioning economy. Accounting is one of those disciplines that is quietly essential to well-run businesses and organizations.
As staff writer Mark Guydish reported, the money will fund two annual full-tuition scholarships for accounting majors in the William G. McGowan School of business. One scholarship will go to a junior, including a summer internship between junior and senior year. Another scholarship will go to a senior.
In response, a grateful King’s has announced it will name its accounting program the Kearney & Company Department of Accounting — a fitting gesture.
“We are extraordinarily grateful for the Kearney family’s generous support of our students and our school,” King’s president Rev. John Ryan said in a release issued Wednesday. “Ed, Anne and all of the Kearney family have been wonderful investors in and supporters of our students for many years. This incredible commitment will improve the King’s experience for our students in the McGowan School of Business and will publicly enhance the special relationship that King’s enjoys with Kearney & Company and the Kearney family.”
This is not Kearney’s first gift to the college: He has funded four full scholarships, one annually, in recent years.
“King’s gave me an opportunity to get a degree in accounting,” Kearney said. “My wife and I are both from the Wyoming Valley, and we have never forgotten where we came from. It is an honor to give back to the King’s community and enable others to have the same opportunity given to me.”
This is heart-warming for two reasons.
First, like so many communities across the nation, we have long bemoaned the loss of talented young people who move away in search of jobs and opportunities elsewhere. If we can’t bring them all home, it’s good to know there are those, like Kearney, who are committed to paying their good fortune back by paying it forward for future generations in their hometowns.
Second, Kearney’s generosity speaks volumes about the impact King’s had on him — just as the school’s founders intended.
Formerly called The College of Christ the King, King’s was founded in 1946 to educate miners and their descendants. In recent years, the college dedicated a Miners Memorial Wall of Honor on Public Square. Robert Wolensky, a Swoyersville native who has written books about the mining industry and miners in Pennsylvania, said during a 2017 ceremony that the memorial is a way for the college and those who visit to keep an “attitude of gratitude.”
That attitude of gratitude is exactly what the Kearney family has demonstrated, and it’s not lost on those who will benefit.
“Stand-up people like the Kearneys are what make King’s a truly special college,” said Mark Michno, a 2018 graduate who received one of the previous scholarships.
One of the new scholarships is being awarded to Maribel Vergara, class of ’21. In the release she said the award “is extremely meaningful, not only financially, but emotionally. … As the recipient of this remarkable opportunity, I assure you that I will not only make my daughter, my mother, and my family proud, but you as well.”
On behalf of the wider community, which continues to benefit from the impact of King’s programs and the work of its students and alumni, we salute the Kearney family for their generosity, and the college for living up to high standards of service and educational excellence that inspire such generosity.
— Times Leader