$100,000 donation

            Press Release from MC Office of Communications

             Monmouth College recently received an unrestricted $100,000 gift from the estate of alumna Joanne Dutcher Maxwell. Gifts to the college in memory of Maxwell, who died last June after serving on Monmouth’s board of trustees for the previous seven years, totaled an additional $12,000.

            “Joanne’s work on behalf of Monmouth College spanned half a century and continued until just weeks before she passed away,” said Monmouth College president Richard Giese. “She was a past national chair for our annual fund, and she was also very involved with Kappa Kappa Gamma, the national women’s fraternity which started at Monmouth.”

            While Maxwell’s gift will help keep her memory alive, so will the college’s recently-published sesquicentennial history book, “A Thousand Hearts’ Devotion.” In the acknowledgements, co-author Jeffrey Rankin writes, “This book is dedicated to the memory of Joanne Dutcher Maxwell ’53, a college trustee responsible for its production and writing. She offered invaluable advice, both as an alumna with personal insight to key chapters of Monmouth College history, and as a writer, editor, and publicist, which was her lifelong profession.”

            After graduating from Monmouth College, where she served as editor of the Oracle and student publicity director, Maxwell became editor and owner of the Naperville Clarion, and in 1960 was the first woman to be named “Editor of the Year” by the Illinois Press Association.

            She later became a public relations executive and Republican strategist who helped direct a number of candidates to the state and national stage, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert. She began her political career in 1960, defeating an incumbent recorder of deeds to become the first woman elected to a countywide office in suburban Chicago’s DuPage County.