Thanks to the E.H Sumners Endowed Scholarship Fund students living in Montgomery, Carroll, Choctaw, Attala, and Webster counties can receive scholarship funds to pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees at one of five institutions for higher learning in Mississippi. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded more than $100 million in scholarships.

The E.H. Sumners Endowed Scholarship Fund was established in 1977 by Mary P. “Ging” Sumners to honor her husband, E.H. “Harry” Sumners, and his wishes to give something back to the communities he loved – the gift of higher education. After his freshman year in college in 1905, Harry Sumners, an Indiana native, was forced to leave the James Milikin School (now Milikin University) in Decatur, Ind., and return home to help support his mother and younger siblings. Sumners’ father was in the timber business before he died of yellow fever in the Mississippi Delta.

Harry Sumners followed in his father’s footsteps and began his own timber business. He eventually came to Mississippi and settled in the Stewart area where he established his first sawmill. Over time, he acquired large holdings of timberland in Montgomery, Carroll, Choctaw, Attala, and Webster counties.

Harry Sumners and his timber business prospered, but according to his nephew, the late John Sumner, he felt he could have been even more successful in business if he had the opportunity to complete his college education.

In a 2019 interview with The Winona Times, John Sumner recalled that his uncle once said, “I made what I have off the sweat of the brow of the people of these fine counties, and I want to give something back to them to help them with their education.”

Years after his death, his wife, Ging Sumners, granted her husband’s wishes and established the endowment. It provides part or all tuition costs, books, and fees to Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi, Millsaps College, University of Mississippi Medical Center, or Holmes Community College for any student with at least a one-year residency in one of five counties in which Sumners’ land is located and maintain a “C” average while at college.

According to John Sumner, when the endowment was established through Deposit Guaranty National Bank (now Regions Bank), approximately 20,000 acres of timberlands lying in five counties were deeded to the bank as trustee for the endowment. Eventually, the timber was sold to Weyerhauser Corporation for around $23 million. Currently, Weyerhauser is under a 40-year lease of the lands, and when that lease ends, the land will return to the Foundation replanted with two-year-old plantation pine trees.

The trust agreement states that none of the land can ever be sold, and the income received must be used for the education of students. The endowment’s principal is more than $95 million, with approximately $5 million paid out each year for higher education.