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Two accounting majors on supporting the school that invested in them

By Jennifer Myers

NEITHER MARY RUDY ’83 nor her husband, David Rudy ’83, planned to attend �Թ�tv. Circumstance— and a bit of fate—brought them to the University and ultimately to each other. But supporting the school that shaped their lives has been a deliberate choice for the couple.

Mary attended Nazareth Academy. A few years before she started at the school, her father died. Her mother supported the family on railroad death benefits that would end when Mary turned 18. “So, it was either get a job or get into a college,” she says. “It was 1978, and there were not a lot of opportunities.”

Just as she began to lose hope, Mary received the call that would change her life: She had been awarded a full four-year scholarship to �Թ�tv from the McShain Foundation. “It was just dropped into my lap,” Mary says; she had not applied for the scholarship.

She suspects a quiet advocate may have helped. Sister Florence Tumasz, CSFN, one of the six Sisters of the �Թ�tv of Nazareth who founded the University and its first academic dean, was her mother’s cousin. “She may have dropped my name on some list, but she never admitted to it,” Mary says.

Meanwhile, David was working in construction while earning an associate’s degree from Bucks County Community College. When mortgage rates hit 18% in 1981 and construction slowed, “I decided I should go to school since we weren’t doing any building,” he says.

The pair met crunching numbers.

“We were taking business classes together and he started following me around like a little puppy,” Mary recalls. “We started studying together and things just went from there.”

“She was bright—she was exceptionally bright,” David says.

“And he’s exceptionally bright,” Mary says.

They married the year after graduation.

Mary went on to spend 35 years as an accountant with the City of Philadelphia Department of Revenue. David founded a roofing company, later ran a cigar shop in State College during the cigar boom of the 1990s, and eventually built a business buying and renovating rental properties.

The Rudys have long supported �Թ�tv with annual gifts, and their philanthropy has deepened in recent years. They established a scholarship fund, contribute to the general fund, and have included the University in their estate plans. 

“It just feels good to give,” says David, who serves on the President’s Advisory Council. “We have everything set up in trusts and �Թ�tv will receive 25% of our estate.” 

For Mary, the decision to give is deeply personal. She often reflects on the uncertainty she faced before receiving that scholarship. “I had fallen through the cracks until I got that phone call,” she says. “It is nice to know that someone else may not fall through the cracks or that the crack may not be as wide.”