Arthur M. Anderson Family Scholarship

“You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” Those words, written by reporter Bob Sylva of the Sacramento Bee, captured the essence of Arthur (Art) Anderson, a Sacramento resident for 68 years. When Art moved from Illinois to California in the Depression years, he brought with him his love for the earth. He quickly learned that gardening in California was very different from farming in Illinois, but he was determined to learn, and learn it he did. He came to be known as “the gardener of 48th Street” because he shared his lush fruits and vegetables with his many neighbors in Sacramento.

In 1979 Art began to dream of starting a scholarship at CLC. He realized that his teenage grandson Tim, a fine student athlete, would soon be thinking about college. Art and Charlotte, his wife of 54 years, established the Arthur M. Anderson Family Scholarship, which was to be awarded to an athlete in good academic standing. However, in 1989, when CLU became associated with the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC), athletic scholarships were no longer permitted on campus. And so, Art changed the scholarship criteria to read “preference to be given to help farm children get a college education.” Even though Tim did not choose to enroll at CLU, Art continued to build the endowed scholarship fund until his death in 1992.

Of course, Art could not know that, in the future, students with an agricultural background would be a rare occurrence at CLU. Today, it is a bit easier to find students with a Scandinavian heritage, another criterion of the award that was inspired by Art’s own Swedish Lutheran background. The current caretaker of the scholarship is Art’s daughter, Donna, who herself fulfilled her own long-cherished dream—to become a nurse.

Art was a man of principle who always looked out for his family, friends and neighbors. Recipients of his scholarship will have to work hard to live up to the example set by the man whose name graces this scholarship.