Heartbroken and grief-stricken, Kimberly Drummer Flanagan ’00 found solace in her UD community after the loss of her father.
Today, she finds strength from the community again as a regular donor through the We Soar campaign to a scholarship in her father’s name.
“I came back to school, the beginning of my junior year, a pretty broken person,” Flanagan said. “I would cry every night. My roommates would stay up with me and sleep in my room. I felt like my friends at UD and the university as a whole just put their arms around me and cared for me.”
“I felt like my friends at UD and the university as a whole just put their arms around me and cared for me.”
Her father, Joseph Drummer ’71 — a UD graduate with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in business administration in 1979 — died less than a year after being diagnosed with glioblastoma.
“I was lost without my dad — he was my person,” Flanagan said. “I never thought anything like that would happen to me, it was very quick and a huge adjustment.”
It was her dad who had encouraged her to remain at UD after Flanagan began to second-guess her decision to attend after her freshman year.
“I was stressed out about the amount of loans I was taking out,” she said. “My dad sat me down and said, ‘If you want to go back, we’ll figure it out.’”
That’s exactly what they did, as Flanagan worked to receive additional aid and scholarship money.
“The cool thing about Dayton is that there are a lot of scholarships. They aren’t all huge, but you can combine them to make it work,” she said.
Fast forward a few years after graduation and Flanagan found herself in a casual conversation with her husband’s friend about scholarships.
“I thought sponsoring a scholarship was something that millionaires did,” Flanagan said. “I had given here and there, but I wondered if I could create a scholarship in my dad’s name.”
As a Front Porch Society member — Flanagan has now given to UD for 11 consecutive fiscal years — she set out to do just that. With the help of friends and family, as well as matching contributions from her employer, the Joseph A. Drummer Scholarship was not only established, but is already endowed, having been awarded to a student the past two years. The scholarship is designated for students who are studying in the School of Business Administration.
Scholarships from private donors are vital to the University’s commitment to provide an accessible and affordable education. As a result of the generosity of these forever Flyers, the university awards more than $200 million annually to current Flyers.
Flanagan, who received both her bachelor’s in accounting and master’s in business administration from UD, is now a partner at Vialto Partners. She sees the scholarship as a way to pay it forward and honor her “person.”
“I think my dad would be really proud to have something in his name, helping future business leaders.”
“I think my dad would be really proud to have something in his name, helping future business leaders,” Flanagan said. “Education was something that was very important to him.”
As a first-generation college graduate, Drummer set a positive example for his working-class family and, later, his children.
“When my dad was in school, going to college was not necessarily a given, but he worked his way through — eating a lot of 50-cent potpies. He did it,” Flanagan said.
His determination and work ethic served as an inspiration to Flanagan throughout her time at UD and beyond. And honoring his memory, she said, has enabled her to help future generations of UD students:
“The UD community helped me cope with his loss, and now I can help another UD student.”
photo courtesy Kimberly Flanagan