NEWS

Family has final $7M gift for hometown

Kelly McGowan
kmcgowan@dmreg.com

The Burnett family continues to support its hometown of Dallas Center after being gone for three decades. About $7 million from the family’s trust will go to organizations in and around the city of about 1,600 residents this year.

Burton Burnett was born in 1913. He made his fortune through farmland and a Ford dealership in Dallas Center. He established a trust to benefit the community prior to his death in 1976. It went into effect in 1986 after his 41-year-old daughter Penelope (Penny) Burnett died of cancer.

“It’s important to remember the family for the gifts they’ve given,” Mayor Michael Kidd said. “They lived in the community, their business earned money from the community and they turned around and gave back from their hearts to the community.”

Dallas Center residents Burton and Willine Burnett died in 1976 and 1974, respectively. Their impact continues to live on in the town through the 30-year Burnett Charitable Trust, which is set to expire and distribute about $7 million in final payouts in November.

The 30-year Burnett Charitable Trust has paid dividends over the last three decades. Last year’s payouts totaled to $258,000. The money is invested in farmland and stocks and is now worth about $7 million, trustee John Thomas said. When the trust expires in November the community groups it benefits will split the value of the trust.

Recipients include the Spurgeon Manor Retirement Community, Dallas Center-Grimes and Southeast Polk school districts, the Dallas Center Presbyterian Church, the Roy R. Estle Memorial Library and the city.

Resident Sylvia Miller gathered information for a booklet about the trust and family that she put together and distributed at the library and City Hall.

“It’s a wonderful story,” she said. “It’s indicative of the way people live out here.”

Penelope (Penny) Burnett, a Dallas Center High School and Drake University graduate, taught and was a guidance counselor at Southeast Polk High School. She died of cancer in 1983 at 41 years old, and honored the Burnett Family Trust.

The trust has awarded $910,000 to Dallas Center-Grimes and $472,000 to Southeast Polk to provide scholarships to graduating seniors. Penny Burnett was a teacher and guidance counselor at Southeast Polk, according to Miller’s article. The district’s National Honor Society chapter is named after her.

“We’ve benefited for so many years and now we’re getting a large benefit,” Miller said. “We want all the families in town to know where it came from and not take it for granted. It’s not government money, it’s not grants, it was a gift to our town.”

She wrote that the family is recognized for more than its financial contributions by many locals.

Burton Burnett is remembered for starting the town’s first baseball team, serving on the Dallas Center school board and helping to establish Spurgeon Manor. He and his wife, Willene, were involved with the Dallas Center Presbyterian Church and reportedly had the town’s second TV set in 1948, making their home a popular stop for people to marvel at the new technology. Penny Burnett sang in the church choir and also remained active in the town after moving to Altoona.

Over the past 30 years, Kidd said various groups have each received between $25,000 and $35,000 annually. The city’s portion goes to the Parks and Recreation Board and has been used for trails, playground equipment, improvements to the baseball and softball complex and more. Money from the trust helped to establish the Burnett Sports Complex in 1990. It also has been used to provide loans to new businesses.

The city avoided using the funds for maintenance and infrastructure.

“We wanted to use them for something special,” Kidd said. “If someone was giving you a gift, you wouldn’t want to use it for normal bills — you’d do something special.”

Kidd said the city estimates its shares could equal about $1.2 million. No final decision has been made on how to use the money, but it will likely include some economic development efforts.

“City leaders are looking forward to applying those funds to projects that will have a lasting impact on the community,” he said.