VMI gets $14 million gift for scholarships

A Virginia Military Institute graduate who struggled to pay for his education during the Depression has left his alma mater more than $14 million.

The bequest by the late Robert B. Rust Jr., who graduated in 1934, was made to the VMI Foundation to endow a scholarship in his name.

A scholarship had helped Rust complete his degree after his family had trouble paying for his last two years because of the Depression, said Gretchen N. Arnold, Rust's niece and the executor of his estate.

Rust, a civil engineer, worked for Southern Railway but made his fortune in the stock market by resisting investment fads such as technology stocks during the 1990s, Arnold said.

-- Karin Kapsidelis