Life-changing RELATIONSHIPS lead to HISTORIC GIFT

For most, friendships emerge through shared backgrounds or experiences. Sometimes they’re forged through circumstance, whether good or bad. And other times, they happen because people share similar traits, thoughts or feelings.

But true friendship is more, and there might not be a better example of that than the relationship between Dr. Jack Griggs (’64) and Dr. Bill Petty (’64) – both former deans of the College of Business Administration at Abilene Christian University – and Dr. Bill Dukes, a highly respected and lauded professor of finance in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech.

That deep, impactful relationship – one that culminated in Griggs and Petty leading Dukes to Christ when he was 80 years old – resulted in the largest academic gift in ACU’s history.

In December 2022, Dr. Bill and Janie Dukes gave, through their estate, more than $29 million to ACU, establishing the Dr. William P. and Janie B. Dukes Excellence in Finance Endowment.

The endowment will support prestigious finance student scholarships, prepare students to attend highly preferred graduate programs and establish endowed faculty positions in finance. The university will also launch the Dukes School of Finance within the College of Business Administration in Fall 2023 in recognition of the historic gift.

“I learned a long time ago that most significant gifts happen because of relationships,” said Petty, a 1964 ACU graduate who was the dean of COBA from 1981-90 and is a professor emeritus of finance at Baylor University. “After Bill came to Jack and me to express an interest in giving to the College of Business, we – along

The Dukes File

Family: Dr. William P. “Bill” Dukes was born in North Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1920. He was married 73 years to Janie Blake Dukes, with two daughters, the late Lynn Ayre Wheatcraft and Sheryl “Sheri” Leah Dukes. Bill died in 2015 at age 94, and Janie died in 2022 at age 96.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in military science from the University of Maryland (1953), MBA in finance from the University of Michigan (1958), Ph.D. in business and finance from Cornell University (1968).

World War II: Dukes was finishing Navy flight training in St. Louis when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. He entered the Marines as a second lieutenant, earning two Distinguished Flying Cross medals and seven Air Medals, among other honors. While in Japan he was commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines Division. While stationed at Marine headquarters near the Pentagon, he coordinated a $200 million budget for ammunition and equipment used by combat units around the world. He retired as a colonel and was later promoted to brigadier general.

Teaching career: Dukes taught 45 years in the finance department of the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University. He received 16 awards for teaching and research, including being named inaugural recipient of the Outstanding Educator Award from the Southwestern Finance Association (2004) and the President’s Academic Achievement Award (2006), one of Texas Tech’s highest honors for a faculty member. He was named James E. and Elizabeth F. Sowell Professor of Finance at Texas Tech in 2007.

with others – worked closely with him to design a gift to accomplish what he wanted it to do.”

Neither Griggs nor Petty could fathom the kind of gift that would be forthcoming from a man who actually set foot on the ACU campus no more than five times. He believed in the mission of the university, despite not being a Christian for most of his life. However, as a U.S. Marine, World War II hero and distinguished academician at Texas Tech, his character spoke for itself and drew Griggs and Petty to him.

“Bill had the kind of traits you wanted in a friend,” Griggs recalled of Dukes, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 94. “He had grit. He was smart, warm, friendly, protective and loyal to his friends. He was an encourager, humble, had an appetite for fun and had a desire for excellence in all things. And so, he was worthy of respect.”

Griggs first met Dukes in 1970 when the former was finishing his doctorate at The University of Texas at Austin. In the fall of that year, Griggs received a phone call from Texas Tech wanting him to make a trip to Lubbock to interview for a job teaching at Tech. His wife, Ann, was invited, but Jack told her not to worry about making the trip because “we weren’t going to Lubbock.”

After Griggs stepped off the plane in Lubbock, he met an impeccably dressed Dukes and Oswald Bowlin, a finance professor at Texas Tech. Before his weekend trip was over, Griggs called back home and spoke to Ann.

“‘Darling, I think we might be coming to Texas Tech,’” Griggs recalled of the conversation. “In effect, he won me over. We went to Texas Tech in January 1971, and Bill Dukes was my boss. He was about 20 years older than me. He was kind but had high standards. His tastes were simple: he simply wanted to be the best, and that’s the way he lived his life, both in the classroom and in his relationships with people.”

It took a while, though, for that working relationship to blossom into friendship.

“Ours didn’t necessarily start as a close, personal relationship,” Griggs said. “He was a Marine and was used to working and getting the job done. I fit right into that. Our work habits were the same. I helped him with a consulting job, and I knew something about how to do it, and I think that impressed him. We did then become close friends, but it was primarily a working relationship.”

About 18 months after going to Lubbock, Griggs was hired away by a bank in San Antonio, and he left Texas Tech. However, he didn’t leave behind a friendship. Instead, Griggs said, they had developed a close, personal friendship and remained in contact. Griggs recommended his old ACU classmate and roommate, Petty, take his place on the faculty at Texas Tech. Dukes hired him, and another friendship and connection to ACU were formed.

It didn’t take long for Petty to realize the same things about Dukes that Griggs had learned from his time working with him at Texas Tech: that he was serious about his work and not compromising his ethics.

“You knew immediately you were in the presence of a man of great character,” Petty said. “There was never a doubt about his integrity and his support for you in your role as a faculty member. It was always about his faculty, never about himself. I also learned I didn’t have to compromise my principles in my work.”

It was during Petty’s time at Texas Tech – which ended in 1981 when he was hired at ACU to be the dean of COBA – that the “Dukes Dudes” came about. Beginning in 1979, a small group of friends that included Dukes, Griggs and Petty began gathering yearly for a deer hunting trip on Petty’s land. Dukes was the central figure in those gatherings, and even after the group stopped hunting, the reunions continued.

It was during those gatherings – and in other conversations with Dukes – that Griggs and Petty each tried to talk to their mentor about his salvation – a subject that he made clear on more than one occasion he wasn’t interested in talking about.

“At one point, he told me, ‘Jack, I don’t want to talk about that anymore. Janie takes care of that for our family,’” Griggs recalled. “He was clear enough that I knew I was going to continue to do as I always did, but I wasn’t going to approach him directly.”

Dukes finally gave in to God’s call on his heart – and to Griggs and Petty – in 2000 when he was baptized at Broadway Church of Christ. Dukes – a man who had served his country, been a war hero, and spoken and taught in front of thousands in his life – was relieved to find out they could get into the church and go through the baptism with just his wife, the Griggs and Pettys in attendance. Petty and Griggs were standing on either side of Dukes when he was baptized at 80 years of age.

After Petty sold his ranch, the Dukes Dudes would continue to meet, either at Texas Tech, at the Lubbock Country Club or on the ACU campus a couple of times. By that time, Dukes had already asked Griggs to be the executor of his estate, which was to be divided between ACU and several Baptist groups.

“Given our knowledge of Bill, we knew it would be a significant amount, but we had no idea it would be so large,” Petty said. “Then, the amount of the gift was further enhanced by Jack’s hard work as the executor of the estate in managing the monies up until the final distribution to the university.”

Kathy Suchy, a colleague of Dukes at Texas Tech who later became the couple’s caretaker, said it was easy to see the friendship between the three men transcended a working relationship and went into something even deeper and more meaningful.

“I had first heard of Jack and Bill through Dr. Dukes back when I worked with him at Texas Tech, as he used to talk fondly about their annual deer hunts,” she said. “Years later, when I came to know Janie, I understood even more fully how deep and loving the connection was between Bill, Janie, and the Griggs and Petty families. Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs, the ones who love and accept you for who you are and would do anything to make you smile or lend you a helping hand. Jack Griggs and Bill Petty were as much family to Bill and Janie Dukes as anyone who shared their bloodline.”

Which makes the transcendent gift to ACU that much easier to understand.

“Jack Griggs and Bill Petty are two men who truly ‘walk the walk,’” Suchy said. “Their own friendship was forged at ACU, and to a large extent, so was their faith and their desire to serve others. ACU is an institution in which young minds can grow and flourish, but also, it’s a place where people learn how to apply their faith to everyday life. Bill Dukes recognized and appreciated the personal integrity and deep faith in these two men, and I think he believed that his significant gift to ACU would allow more young men and women to develop intellectually and spiritually in the same way as Jack Griggs and Bill Petty did.”

And that is the hope that the men who came to love Bill and Janie Dukes as family have for the gift he left behind.

“Above all, I hope it changes lives,” Petty said, “while at the same time providing a light in the academic world that a university can be the best at academics and, at the same time, hold firm to its Christian heritage.”