Siegele Family Endowed Scholarship

Most people will never know the true impact that Kenneth Siegele had upon the fiscal undergirding of California Lutheran University. One reason was that he went about carrying out his responsibilities quietly and capably. Another reason was that he had a clear vision of what would best serve the college’s needs in the future.

Ken’s lifetime of work in the Lutheran Church began as a pastor in North Dakota in 1960. He then served as an administrator with the American Lutheran Church in both Fargo and Minneapolis beginning in 1969. It was his knowledge of deferred giving that brought him to CLC in 1975, where he initiated the college’s program in deferred giving and estate planning. His knowledge and pastoral manner with donors won him their respect and trust. As CLU’s endowment grew, the institution’s long-term security also grew. Ken served as both vice president for development and as executive director of California Lutheran Educational Foundation. His colleagues remember him for always being willing to share his knowledge and mentor coworkers in the art of fundraising.

Ken was also an outstanding family man. While he was busy in the development office his wife Margaret was applying her expert secretarial skills wherever they were needed in CLU’s education department. Together Ken and Margaret raised four children, three of whom attended CLU. Their son Paul graduated from CLU in 1980 with a degree in geology, and went on to a very successful career with Chevron Corporation. The Siegele children displayed the same integrity as their parents, and the quality was also shared by Ken and Margaret’s granddaughter Lauren, who graduated from CLU in 2010.

When Ken retired from CLU in 1996, he and Margaret continued to live in Newbury Park where they were active members of King of Glory Lutheran Church and where Ken enjoyed his hobby of cultivating exotic orchids. Their contented life was interrupted in 1999 when Ken was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In 2002 they made the decision to move to a retirement community in Santa Barbara where they soon became engrossed in activities that were cut short only by Ken’s death in 2013.

Christian stewardship was as natural as breathing to both Ken and Margaret. In 1987, after several years of general support for CLU, they signed an agreement to establish a scholarship/fellowship to be funded through their trust. Yet it was their generous gifts during their lifetimes that helped the fund reach the endowment level. Following his father’s death, son Paul merged his Chevron scholarship gifts into the Siegele endowment as well. The Siegele Family Endowed Scholarship is open to Lutheran students at any level of study (undergraduate or graduate) who maintain a 3.5 or higher grade point average. The first Siegele award was made in 1988.