Giving back … and then some – Phyllis Washington – “Education is where her heart is and where it’s always been.”

Missoula billionaire couple to donate $6 million, including $3 million earmarked for teaching program where Washington got her start.

Phyllis Washington never forgot her roots at the UM School of Education, and her generosity is ensuring that her alma mater will never forget her

A week after Dennis and Phyllis Washington were wed, Dennis quit his construction job, leaving behind his salary and the use of a company car to try his luck at self-employment. In the first years of that bold gamble, he banked on Phyllis to pay the bills with her $300-a-month teacher’s salary from Prescott Elementary School.

It was 1964, and at the time the newlyweds lived in a cabin in the upper reaches of Missoula’s Rattlesnake Valley with no running water. Phyllis, a newly minted University of Montana School of Education graduate, was struggling to pay off about $2,500 in school loans.

Their circumstance was humble, Phyllis said.

By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2005/12/04/news/top/news01.txt

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