FOUNDATION NEWS
Mother Knows Best:
Grad Has Successful Career After Mom’s Insistence on Higher Education
BY TY DEMARTINO ’90
Carl Donald ’60 didn’t have a choice when it came to attending Frostburg State Teachers College.
“I threatened to go into the military at 17, but my mother refused to sign the papers,” recalled Donald, a native of the town of Gilmore in the George’s Creek area of Allegany County. Instead, his mother told her son that he was going to attend nearby Frostburg State to become a teacher. It turned out that mother knew best for young Donald.
“I had a very satisfying education,” said Donald, now retired.
His experiences as an educator also inspired him to create the Carl J. Donald Education Scholarship at FSU, awarded to a student in the Department of Educational Professions who graduated from an Allegany or Garrett county high school.
Donald was the first to receive a college education on his father’s side of the family. His mother had a brother, Thomas Blair, who attended college and had a successful career teaching business courses at Frostburg’s Beall High School, now Mountain Ridge. Donald believes his uncle’s success influenced his mother to be insistent about her son’s education. Donald did choose his concentration of study, which was history.
“It was the subject I enjoyed the most, and I thought I would get other students interested.” He also played baseball all four years of college. When it was time to graduate, he had to leave his beloved home in Western Maryland to find employment.
“As you travel through the area, you see a need,” Donald said. “And I was in a position where I could do it.”
“Most of us who graduated and wanted to stay in the education field had to go elsewhere.”
Donald was hired by Frostburg alum Dr. James A. Sensenbaugh ’28, superintendent of schools for Frederick County, Md., and later Maryland state superintendent of schools, to be a history teacher at West Frederick Junior High. After nearly a decade of teaching, Donald moved into the world of administration, becoming assistant principal at Thurmont Middle School and principal at Middletown and Brunswick middle schools.
“I guess I always wanted to participate in education by making decisions, instead of receiving them,” he joked. He eventually was named director of Frederick County Middle Schools in the mid-1980s, before retiring in 1993.
Donald and his late wife, Ruth Deniker Donald, settled in Frederick County and purchased a vacation house on Alpine Lake in Terra Alta, W.Va. Their many drives to the resort area led Donald to think about a scholarship at FSU to give assistance to young people who dreamed of being educators but may not have the resources.
“As you travel through the area, you see a need,” Donald said. “And I was in a position where I could do it.”
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald has spent the majority of the past year at his lake home, golfing and enjoying quiet in the wilderness. He’s reflective about his gift to FSU and is happy when he receives letters from or meets the student recipients of his generosity.
“I valued my time in Allegany County, George’s Creek and Frostburg State.”
His mother would be proud.
To make a gift in support of the Carl J. Donald Education Scholarship, contact the FSU Foundation, Inc., at 301-687-4068 or visit the FSU Foundation web site.