A Perfect Match
Brothers Robert and Ray Hites left a lasting legacy that will benefit Phi Theta Kappa members for years to come.
The story began years ago, when Robert Hites, a longtime executive with Ralston Purina, became an adjunct teacher at St. Louis Community College’s Meramec Campus after his retirement. He was deeply impressed by the students and the persistence they showed despite financial obstacles to earning a college degree.
Robert established the Hites Family Community College Scholarship Foundation in 1991, and after his death his brother Ray became chairman. As the Foundation grew and prospered, Ray and his fellow trustees found themselves overwhelmed.
Then one of the trustees had an idea to approach community colleges with a challenge grant. That idea worked well, and that might have been the end of the story. But in 2007 one of the board members, Dr. Paul Gianini, a former president of Valencia Community College in Florida, told them about Phi Theta Kappa, an organization doing the same thing they were doing.
Ray contacted Phi Theta Kappa, was invited to visit PTK’s headquarters, and the rest, as they say, is history. He called the partnership between Phi Theta Kappa and the Hites Family Community College Scholarship Foundation a “perfect match.”
That match has provided a scholarship endowment of $2.3 million to fund the Hites Transfer Scholarships, awards of $7,500 to at least 10 members annually for baccalaureate studies.
At Phi Theta Kappa’s 2008 convention, the Hites Family Foundation announced their challenge grant to establish a $1 million scholarship endowment by matching funds raised by the Phi Theta Kappa Foundation two to one.
A year later, Ray and other Hites Family Foundation Trustees returned to the Phi Theta Kappa Convention. The audience cheered the news that the Foundation had raised $350,000 to meet the first Hites Challenge, then gave a standing ovation as Ray announced a second $1 million challenge, which was met in 2010.
In 2009, Ray accepted the Alliance for Educational Excellence’s Distinguished Partner Award, saluting the Hites Foundation’s support of higher education. In 2011, the Hites Trustees dissolved their Foundation and gifted remaining funds to Phi Theta Kappa. Ray became a Trustee of the Phi Theta Kappa Foundation, serving until his death in 2015.
Fellow Foundation Trustees praised Ray as a remarkable individual who made an incredible impact on the lives of Phi Theta Kappa members. Today the Hites Scholarship program remains Phi Theta Kappa’s largest award. Ray’s widow, Jackie, is now carrying on this family’s legacy of philanthropy by serving as a Phi Theta Kappa Foundation Trustee. She was often by Ray’s side at annual conventions as members approached to thank them for the scholarships they’d received.
