Major Gift from Alumnus Brings Campaign Closer to Goal

October 16, 2006

A $225,000 gift from Phoenix-based magazine publisher Bill Phalen has moved the Southern Miss Alumni Association’s Ogletree House Campaign past 60 percent of its $3 million goal.

The commitment from Phalen, a 1965 alumnus of The University of Southern Mississippi, is the second-largest since the campaign’s kickoff and is the first in the Major Gift category. The Phalen commitment allows for the naming of the Phalen Courtyard at the new facility. 

Phalen, an Arizona resident, is CEO and chairman of Cities West Publishing Inc., which produces a number of publications including Phoenix magazine and Phoenix Home & Garden.  While Phoenix magazine has been printed for more than 40 years, it has experienced a circulation and readership boom since Phalen gained an ownership interest almost a decade ago. Today, it boasts 320,000 readers. And while Phoenix magazine is one of the top city and regional publications in the country, Phoenix Home & Garden has found its own sizeable niche. The publication, which has a paid circulation of 86,000, provides ideas for the home and regionally suited advice for growing plants in the desert. 

“Bill Phalen is an alumnus every university would be proud to claim,” said Dr. Aubrey K. Lucas, co-chair of the Ogletree House Campaign and president emeritus of Southern Miss. “He appreciates his undergraduate education; he is immensely successful in his various businesses; he is generous; he exemplifies the highest standards in his work and in his living, and it is always a pleasure to visit with him and his wife, Maibritt.”

Phalen credits his Southern Miss education as a factor in his career success. 

“It (Southern Miss) was much smaller than it is now,” he said. “I felt connected. Because of the culture here and the way the professors related to their students, I felt that I received a better education than I would have had I gone to a much larger university.” 

Phalen came to Hattiesburg from Illinois on the advice of a close friend who had earned a pair of graduate degrees from Southern Miss. He quickly made himself right at home. As a student, Phalen worked as the business manager for The Student Printz, selling ads for the student paper. 

“It was a very cordial atmosphere,” Phalen recalled. “The people were very friendly. There is truth to the saying about ‘Southern hospitality.’ The faculty was very dedicated to the student body – remarkably so.”  Phalen’s gift is the result of his friendship with Lucas, as well as the loyalty to Southern Miss fostered during his years as a student. 

“I’m making a contribution to a university that gave me so much,” he said. “A lot of good things happened for me there and I made a lot of good friends. It’s time for me to start giving back. 

“In the early '90s I ran into Dr. Lucas in an airport and he was so kind to sit and talk with me; we built a great friendship,” he added. “Southern Miss is very lucky to have a guy like Dr. Lucas, who is interested in the growth of the university even though he is no longer president. It is hard not to respond to him when he asks for something.” 

The Ogletree House Campaign will provide funding for the complete restoration and expansion of the home of the Alumni Association on the Southern Miss campus. An Albert and Associates Architects’ design will greatly expand the size of the 94-year-old existing structure, which is one of the campus’ five original buildings, from 6,500 square feet to approximately 12,000.

The Ogletree House is named for Powell Ogletree, who in three decades of service to the alumni association built it into one of the top alumni associations in the country. 

Contributions to the Campaign for the Restoration and Expansion of the Ogletree House are accepted online or by check payable to The University of Southern Mississippi Foundation (with Ogletree House Fund in the memo blank) and mailed to the Southern Miss Alumni Association, 118 College Drive #5013, Hattiesburg, MS 39406-0001. For more information, contact the Alumni Association at 601.266.5013.

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