Bottled Blessings
Story: Amy Crawford
Photos: Courtesy Gail Clarke-Smith
Gail Clarke-Smith's unconventional gift to Concordia University, Nebraska will benefit students for years to come.
Gail Clarke-Smith and her late husband Art began supporting the Concordia University, Nebraska chemistry program in the late 2000s. Gail’s daughter Dr. Kristy Jurchen and Kristy’s husband Dr. John Jurchen ’97 teach chemistry at the university. Gail and Art supported Concordia Nebraska annually until Art passed away in 2017. The couple were both passionate about philanthropy, and Gail wanted to continue to give charitably following his death. She decided that she wanted to target a few key organizations, using her annual IRA charitable contributions and other treasures in a strategic way to make the most impact possible.
Art was an avid wine enthusiast and had an extensive collection of both valuable wines and fun finds. Sometime after Art’s passing, Gail reorganized the collection – including a portion owned by John and Kristy - and after some research realized some of the bottles were worth more than $1,000 each. “Too expensive to drink!” Gail noted, and she began considering how to use the collection to benefit others.
“Since Concordia Nebraska was high on my list of places I wanted to support philanthropically, and since it is a major influence in the Seward community, it made perfect sense to me that the school could be a major beneficiary if at all possible," she said.
In 2019, Gail, John and Kristy began working with the university’s advancement office to make Gail’s dreams a reality. Following a wine valuation, a festive “wine packing party” and a lot of determined coordination and hard work, the auction of a portion of the wine collection netted about $40,000. Ultimately, it led to the beginning of two separate endowment funds, the Jurchen Chemistry Instrumentation and Research Endowment and the Clarke Student Success Scholarship Endowment for the university. When it is fully funded, the Jurchen endowment will further the mission of the chemistry department, funding state-of-the-art research instrumentation and supporting students conducting research in chemistry or related areas. The Clarke endowment aims to support students from underrepresented populations who attend Concordia, particularly those who receive only need-based and academic scholarship aid. The extra support will allow them to affordably attend a university that will nurture them and help them reach their full potential. Neither endowment is fully funded yet, so Concordia is inviting additional gifts from others who share these passions with Gail, John and Kristy.
“Gail has such a unique joy that she brought to the process,” said Concordia Nebraska Senior Director of Development and Engagement Scott Seevers.
Gail was born and raised in Randolph, New York, a small farming community in the southwest corner of the state. She graduated from high school in 1962 and was valedictorian of her class. She attended Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, and majored first in history and then in elementary education. Here she met her beloved Arthur. They were married on December 29, 1965, in Randolph, New York. They lived in Michigan while he continued going to college. After Art graduated, he took an engineering job with Westinghouse Corp. They moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and lived in the suburb of Oakmont. Gail taught in the Oakmont Schools and obtained a master's degree in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh in 1970. Gail and Art moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1970 due to Art's work on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system. They lived in California until 2017. There, they raised their two daughters, Pamela and Kristy.
“When we lived in the Bay Area, we were about one-and-a-half hours from Napa Valley and developed a love and taste for good wine,” she said. “We had good friends who owned a winery in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and we took vicarious pleasure in watching them grow and develop their business and acres of vineyards. We loved going to their place to help out with wine tasting events. Every year, Art would take a trip to the Napa Valley just after bottling was complete and the newest vintages went up for sale. He would buy several cases of wine from his favorite vineyards. His intention was to lay the wine away and allow it to age to its best potential.”
In the mid 1980's, in order to properly house this growing collection, Art built a modular wine cellar that could be dismantled if Gail and Art ever moved. California houses rarely have basements, so the wine cellar lived in their California garage but came with the couple when they moved to Nebraska.
I have seen my own donations fall on fertile ground, take seed and bear fruit.
“Over the years, the collection grew and grew until it totaled about 1,500 bottles: the ‘good stuff’ as well as some nice but regular wine for everyday drinking,” said Gail. “Moving the collection from California to Nebraska is another story in and of itself!”
In 2107, she and Art moved from California to Seward in order to be closer to Kristy and her family. Art died in the summer of that year, and Gail sought to redefine herself as a single person again.
“I felt blessed to have a steady and reliable retirement income that allows me to live a comfortable economic life. I wanted to use some of that treasure philanthropically to promote programs that support diversity and social justice in the community,” she said.
In October 2024, Gail married Mike Smith, and the duo continues to ardently support many organizations through their shared focus on philanthropy.
Some have compared the story of Gail meeting Mike and their early relationship to a Hallmark movie, she said. In short, it involves their nearly identical RV's, RV awning repairs, lots of emails, parallel lives in the San Francisco Bay area, dealing with love and loss of spouses and similar ways of looking at the world. Mike spent his childhood in Panama and Texas and moved to Omaha when he was in high school. After graduating as an engineering major from the University of Nebraska - Omaha, he decided to try his luck in California. He started out as an organ repairman, but his love of computers and technology eventually led him to a career as a software engineer and developer in Silicon Valley.
“He returned to Omaha in 2019 after the death of his first wife,” explained Gail. “He remarried for the second time in 2020 to a college friend who died in early 2023 from major health issues. We met in July of 2023, clicked, and now here we are!”
They were married on October 19, 2024, at the SAC Aerospace Museum in Ashland, Nebraska.
Gail said others are now contributing to the university’s chemistry endowment whose seed money came largely from the wine sale. Thanks to contributions from other families, the $50,000 minimum for the chemistry endowment has already been surpassed.
“Because this money is going to fund endowments, those will continue to produce income to benefit the university and students for generations to come,” added Seevers. “That is a great way to offer a legacy gift that honors Art and his passion for wine, and marry it with Gail, Mike, John and Kristy’s passion for Concordia students. There are so many ways to tie your life, your work and your interests to your passion for the work being done at Concordia Nebraska. There are so many ways to give besides simply writing a check.”
“This journey has definitely been a joyful one!” added Gail. “People often say that if a person lets go of some of their treasure, they get back far more than they give away. I know this is true. I have seen my own donations fall on fertile ground, take seed and bear fruit."
Supporters of Concordia University, Nebraska don’t always use a check book and a pen to support the university’s mission. Many bless Concordia with appreciated stocks, business assets or other unique gifts, including these from the recent past:
- Gail Clarke-Smith’s wine collection: to start operating and scholarship endowments
- Farm equipment including a combine to support a family endowment for church worker scholarships
- Cattle: to support church work scholarships
- Steinway Spirio 7-foot grand piano: to support the music department’s all-Steinway initiative
- Farm land: to support various university initiatives including student scholarship endowments or operating expenses
- A rental house property: to support the general operating budget