BRCC receives $1 million gift, Paul Young's tribute to his late wife
Fletcher's Paul Young wanted to honor his late wife, Mauriene "Renee" Young, who passed away in April after a short battle with cancer at the age of 78, and he found the best way he knew how — by giving back to nurses who took care of her during her illness.
Blue Ridge Community College announced in a Dec. 20 news release that Young presented a $1 million gift to BRCC's Educational Foundation. This gift will fund an ongoing nursing scholarship, new instructional equipment and many other resources needed to help students pursue nursing careers.
“The nurses treated Renee like she was their own mother,” Young said in the release.
In his final couple of months with his wife, Young spent nearly every day at an area hospital. According to the release, the family had only learned of the aggressive cancer a year earlier. For years, Renee believed that the pain in her foot was only plantar fasciitis, until an x-ray revealed a cause for more concern. By the next spring, she required constant care, the release said.
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Around the clock, nurses rotated in and out of the hospital room, gently caring for his wife’s every need, providing encouragement while also protecting her dignity in sensitive moments.
“They treated her with the utmost love and respect, doting over her and making her No. 1,” said Kim Young, Paul’s daughter, in the release. “It takes a very special person to become a nurse.”
After Renee Young passed away on April 30, Paul Young wanted to express his gratitude to the nurses who were there for his wife. According to the release, he considered bringing a gift to the hospital, but with so many nurses involved, he wasn’t sure who should receive it. Instead, he decided to help generations of nurses with the resources his successful family businesses had earned over his lifetime.
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Through BRCC’s nursing program, the gift will create a legacy in his wife’s honor, including a scholarship in her name.
Paul Young is known in Western North Carolina for his work with Shoney’s restaurants and Kounty Line convenience stores. He built and operated 13 Shoney’s restaurants between 1971-78 with his brother, James Cubby Young, in the cities of Brevard, Asheville, Enka-Candler, Waynesville, Morganton, Forest City, Florence City in South Carolina and the Tri-Cities region of Tennessee. According to the release, his first job with Shoney’s was at the age of 12, washing car windows outside a restaurant in Charleston, West Virginia.
He worked his way up to a cook by age 17, and by age 23, he worked as a vice president over 14 Shoney’s locations. In 1979 he gave each of the managers who oversaw his WNC restaurants the opportunity to purchase them.
More recently, Young built and operated a series of Kounty Line convenience stores, the release said. The name was derived from the location of the original store near Airport Road in Arden, which sat squarely on the Buncombe and Henderson County lines. The store even had an interior line painted down the middle to denote the boundary. He later expanded to four total stores, with two operated by his son and one by each of his daughters.
“We are so very moved by Mr. Paul Young’s story and love for his wife,” said Dr. Laura B. Leatherwood, president of Blue Ridge Community College, in the release. “His investment in tomorrow’s nurses through our college will have a profound and lasting impact. We’re grateful to the Young family for entrusting this great honor to us as we educate nursing professionals in Renee’s name.”
After Young shared his decision, BRCC nursing students, faculty and staff thanked him with a signed and framed piece of artwork that read, “Thank you for believing in us.”
“I just hope it makes a difference and that it helps make many happy, caring nurses,” he said.
Blue Ridge Community College’s Educational Foundation is a nonprofit organization that supports the students, faculty, and programs of Blue Ridge Community College. For more information go to www.blueridge.edu/foundation.
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Paul Young's $1 million gift to BRCC honors his wife, future nurses
