MALCOLM E. POWELL

AUGUST 8, 1928 - DECEMBER 2, 2022

On December 2, 2022, the Wesleyan community lost a great supporter and advocate. Malcolm Powell loved the Lord, and he loved people. His love of both intersected at Wesleyan School where five of his grandchildren graduated.

It is no overstatement to say that Malcolm played a prominent role in the development of Wesleyan. He is directly connected to two of the miracles that bolstered the efforts of administrators and board members in those early years when the campus was more dirt than brick.

ZACH YOUNG , headmaster emeritus, recalls, “I believe it was in late 1996, our first year on the new campus, when he [Malcolm] came into my trailer and told me about his best friend Russ Henderson who had died the previous summer. Malcolm had seen our master plan and heard that we were going to have football at Wesleyan.

“Trouble was,” Young continues, “We were trying to raise money to build the first academic building on campus, what became Cleghorn Hall, and we had already increased the fundraising goal because of construction cost increases. You can understand, I did my very best to convince Malcolm to redirect his gift toward this more pressing need, but he was steadfast. He wanted to honor his friend via a football stadium. And so we started planning.

“Football would have happened eventually at Wesleyan but not on the same time frame,” Young continues. “Since the football program was successful from the beginning, it put us on the map with publicity we could not have gained elsewhere.”

As the campus continued to be developed, the time came for Wesley Hall. A major part of that building was a beautiful, new theater. The Powell family made the gift to make that possible.

“Rare is the family that is willing to support both the arts and athletics like Malcolm and Musette did, but that was the way he was and she is,” Young explains. “Malcolm believed that the place was worth the generous investments he made, and he gave unmatched encouragement to everyone who thought Wesleyan could be of real value to the community it serves.”

While many current Wesleyan families did not know Malcolm Powell, they are impacted daily by his overwhelming generosity to the school. Our community would not be the place that it is if it were not for Malcolm and Musette Powell.