Once a year Debbie Cooper, CFG’s Director of Community Impact–Grants and Scholarships, delivers a thick file to Mrs. Margaret Paylor. In it are dozens of applications from promising Greenville County high school students, each hoping to receive financial assistance from the Margaret and Jack Paylor Family Scholarship Fund.
“I read until I’m bleary eyed,” said Mrs. Paylor, who at age 100 rises daily at 5 a.m. “You wouldn’t believe the glowing reports from their teachers.”
Mrs. Paylor endowed the scholarship in 2017 after experiencing a windfall following Duke Energy’s 2016 purchase of Piedmont Natural Gas. She had supported higher education in the past with grants from a donor advised fund she established in 1995. She wanted the scholarship to serve a different purpose, so she set up guidelines to fill a need she had observed.
“I established it to help children who were trying to go to college and had all of the qualifications and were admitted to an in-state school, but who didn’t have the means to pay for it,” she said.
Education was always important to Paylor, who attended Peace College and graduated from the University of North Carolina at age 19 with an education degree. She wanted to go to law school, but her father died, and with a brother three years younger, she didn’t want to put any more pressure on her mother. So she took a teaching job in Virginia, which at the time paid more than North Carolina. She taught high school civics, government, and world and American history. Later, she would go on to earn a master’s degree in education from Clemson University.
Her late husband, Jack, attended North Carolina State University for one year before being drafted to serve overseas in World War II. He returned after three years and completed a degree in engineering. Together they raised four children, all of whom graduated with advanced degrees. Their two sons became doctors, one daughter a lawyer and the other daughter earned a master’s degree in social work.
As she approaches a century of living, Mrs. Paylor, whose daily exercise regimen includes cardio, free weights, yoga poses and the splits, finds joy right outside her window and in other places in Greenville. “I was at the Liberty Bridge recently and looked at all the planning and planting of the landscape, and it was perfectly beautiful,” she said. “I’m thankful that I’m as agile as I am and can do moves the average person of my age can’t.”
She’s also happy knowing that she’s helping make education attainable for deserving students.
“I’m always really pleased that the scholarships are out there helping students finance their first year of college,” she said. “We originally planned to provide six scholarships, but due to good investment by the Community Foundation, there will be 17 this year.”
Though reading the applications may seem like work—and the Community Foundation doesn’t require donors to assist—she’s committed to continuing her annual practice for the foreseeable future. “I’m not going anywhere for a while,” she said.
To date, the Margaret and Jack Paylor Family Scholarship has made 69 awards for a total of $305,000. As an endowed fund, it will continue in perpetuity.