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ife-long learner, teacher, rancher, mentor, conservationist, volunteer, philanthropist – all these adjectives describe Jay Butler, ’80. But however he may be remembered in the future, his primary desire is to “give back” to the people and places that have shaped him and to pass down the values they have taught. At Georgetown’s Homecoming last fall, he and his wife Linda traveled from their ranch in Wyoming to be present at the ribbon cutting ceremony in the Asher Science Center. Jay, along with his father, Dr. John Butler and his wife Dr. LuAnnette Butler, gave funds for refurbishing Asher 112, the largest classroom space on campus and the one used for faculty meetings during Dr. Butler’s tenure as academic dean at Georgetown (1974 to 1980). LuAnnette Butler was a psychology professor at Georgetown from 1968 to 1980. Previously, the Butler family donated funds to renovate a biology lab on the science building’s first floor. Both Jay and his father are retired educators of the life sciences. Jay was born and reared in Sioux Falls, S.D., the eldest of three children. His mother, Dorothy, who passed away in 2020, was a native of Wyoming. She was raised on her family’s large cattle ranch south of Casper, originally obtained by her grandfather, Tom Robinson Sr., through the Homestead Act in 1916. The initial 320 acres expanded over the years as other homesteaders gave up and headed back east, selling their adjacent land to Robinson. He obtained cash for those purchases by drilling wells for other landowners in the Powder River Basin, which averages less than 14-inches of rain annually. As a child, Butler would leave Sioux Falls every summer and spend weeks on the ranch with his grandparents. “I have wonderful memories of riding my horse, Buck, and moving sheep and cattle while on horseback and working with my grandfather on all kinds of ranch projects,” he recalls. His child-sized handprint remains impressed in the cement at the base of a windmill, a monument to those golden summers.
GC MAGAZINE | SPRING 2022
During that period, Dr. John Butler was a biology professor at the University of Sioux Falls before taking the academic dean position at Georgetown College in 1974, the middle of Jay’s junior year of high school. “At first I resented having to move,” Jay says about being uprooted, “but afterwards I thought it was one of the best things ever.” A westerner with a bent for biology like his dad, he loved exploring the different ecosystems of the area as well as the culture of the Bluegrass region.
Though tempted to return to the familiar and attend college in Sioux Falls, Jay elected to get his bachelor’s degree at Georgetown. Here he found friends in the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity and flourished in the sciences under the tutelage of beloved professors such as Dr. John 31 Blackburn, Dr. Dwight Lyndsay, and Dr. Thomas Seay. “Living on campus is a really positive experience. You can get involved with all the activities and build stronger friendships.” He is still in contact with English professor Dr. Steven May and has gone on gold panning
