Colorado State University holds a special place in Dennis and Carla Wacker’s hearts. The couple, who have been married for 61 years, met in 1958 before a CSU football game. Carla forgot her student ID, so Dennis gave her a ride to the dorms on the handlebar of his bicycle. “The rest is history,” Carla says with a laugh.

But there’s another important reason for the Wackers’ dedication to CSU. It’s where Dennis and Carla both developed confidence in their educational abilities.

“I never had any idea that I was capable of college,” says Dennis, who transferred to CSU from a community college in Lamar, Colorado. “My father didn’t graduate from high school.”

It wasn’t easy, but Dennis graduated with a civil engineering degree in 1963 and pursued a career in traffic and highway location engineering. Carla, who earned a business degree in 1964, worked for the federal government. The couple also raised two children.

Now retired, Dennis and Carla discovered a tax-smart way to support the university that has given them so much.

“We needed to withdraw a certain amount of money from our IRAs, and the taxes on it were burdensome,” Carla says. “We were shocked.”

But then they learned that their required minimum distributions could be used as tax-free charitable donations instead.

The Wackers, who currently live in Moab, Utah, decided to use their IRA to fund two scholarships for CSU students, one in the College of Business and one in the Walter Scott College of Engineering.

“It’s very troublesome how much education costs these days,” Dennis says. “The two of us can only give a little bit, but we do what we can. We feel good that we can help.”

Create Life-Changing Opportunities

Will you join the Wackers in supporting CSU? You can make a gift through your estate plan, give through your IRA, or consider a gift of real estate, life insurance, or securities. To learn more, contact the Office of Gift Planning at (970) 491-4254 or giftplanning@colostate.edu.