Arthur B. Kaiser Memorial Scholarship

Most college campuses promise students that they will have warm, personal relationships with faculty. California Lutheran University has always aimed to be a place where personal interactions between students and professors are the norm, not the exception. This story about the creation of the Arthur B. Kaiser Memorial Scholarship is a testament to those close relationships that one student formed while at CLU.

In 1989 Larry Grimes ’86 wrote to one of his favorite professors in the religion department. Larry thanked the faculty member for the positive influence he and his colleagues had had on Larry’s life. In his letter, Larry sought advice as to how he might honor his deceased grandfather, Arthur B. Kaiser, a man who had made it possible for Larry to attend CLU. Larry was considering a memorial scholarship.

When he first became a CLU student, Larry lived with his wife Sheri and their three children in Santa Paula, where he was serving as pastor of an Assembly of God church. But he was still trying to decide what to do with his life. He wanted to complete his degree at CLU but didn’t have the necessary funds to do so. That’s when his grandfather stepped in with the needed financial assistance.

Larry and Sheri were tithers who believed in giving 10 percent of their income to their church. When the couple sold their California home and moved to Florida, they decided to use some of their house profits to create this scholarship in memory of Larry’s grandfather. Amazingly, their proposed gift and tithe for the memorial was $5,000—exactly the amount at that time required to establish an endowed scholarship.

Thus, Larry and Sheri created the Arthur B. Kaiser Memorial Scholarship for religion majors planning to pursue a graduate degree. In the years since, it has continued to help strong students who are serious about their educational goals. Because Larry had benefited so much from his grandfather’s generosity, he wanted to do the same for someone else. If one good turn indeed deserves another, Larry certainly followed his grandfather’s example in setting up a scholarship to help others.