Un i v e r s i t y of R h od e I s l a n d F o u n d at i on
The FILlMORE memorial
E n d ow ment Scholarship & Bequest
With a Love of URI Instilled at an Early Age... Judith Fillmore Honors Her Parents by supporting students
Judith Fillmore draws a deep breath of briny air and smiles as she takes in Narragansett Bay from the University of Rhode Island’s Bay Campus. Square in view is the URI vessel The Endeavor and, across the Bay in Jamestown, her family home. Fillmore has bequeathed her estate to the University which will be added to an endowment she previously established, creating additional scholarship opportunities for ocean sciences students in need. “My home is in Virginia, but my heart is in Rhody,” she says. “Salt water is in my veins, I guess.” Also in Fillmore’s heart is a love for the University. Though not a graduate herself, Fillmore is the child of two URI alums: Robert (Bob) H. Fillmore and Marjorie P. Fillmore. In their honor, Fillmore created the Robert H. and Marjorie P. Fillmore Memorial Endowment Fund.
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Her dad’s area of study at URI was chicken and poultry, Fillmore says and smiles. Her mom was the first woman to graduate with an engineering degree. After graduating in the 1930’s, Robert Fillmore, a United States Army officer, married Marjorie and took the family to Germany, where he was stationed. “We traveled all over the place,” Fillmore recalls. “Yet everywhere we went we would find an alumni association. There was always someone from Rhode Island where we were stationed.” When the family was in the United States the connection to the University amplified. “I got involved while still a child through the Washington, D.C. Alumni Chapter of URI,” Fillmore recalls. “Every May there was a clambake.” Fillmore said she gladly participated in the clambake