Enhancing the Lives of Future UM Students

Mother honors daughter’s memory with fund for Ole Miss Women’s Council scholars

Mariamne Young of Oxford, Mississippi, only had 36 precious years with her daughter, Amne Young Richardson, an Ole Miss alumnus who died of cancer in December 2019.

However, as a result of the Amne Young Richardson Ole Miss Women’s Council Leadership Endowment that Young recently established with a generous gift to the University of Mississippi, her late daughter will continue enhancing the lives of future generations of UM students.

While honoring the life and legacy of Amne Young Richardson in perpetuity, the endowment provides financial resources to the leadership and mentorship aspects of the Ole Miss Women’s Council for Philanthropy (OMWC) scholarship program.

“I really love the work that the Women’s Council has been doing for nearly 25 years to transform the lives of Ole Miss students,” Young said. “The Women’s Council is such a special scholarship program in that it offers enormous support and unique opportunities to its scholars.”

The OMWC provides each scholar with one of the most generous scholarship awards on campus. In addition to the $40,000 scholarship ($10,000 a year for four years), Women’s Council scholars have access to a wide variety of other resources throughout their academic careers as undergraduates.

The scholars are paired with life and career mentors, participate in leadership symposiums and are encouraged to engage in volunteer and community service activities. The Women’s Council’s Global Leadership Circle initiative also provides these scholars with resources aimed at promoting international studies and internships.

“This endowment is more than just a donation,” said OMWC Chair Roane Rayner Grantham. “It’s an investment in the future of our scholars, crucial to sustaining the unique advantages of our program. Programmatic endowments like this extend their impact beyond academics; they foster leadership and personal growth among our scholars.”

Young said the experiential learning aspects of the Women’s Council program are enormously appealing to her, and her daughter Amne would have enjoyed that as well.

“Providing these scholars with opportunities to travel and other educational opportunities outside the classroom are precisely the aspects of this program that my daughter Amne would want to support,” Young said. “She loved her time at Ole Miss and especially appreciated being introduced to new experiences.”

The new Amne Young Richardson Ole Miss Women’s Council Leadership Endowment supports a wide variety of programming aspects of the OMWC Scholarship program. The fund makes financial resources available for activities such as the monthly leadership dinners called Red Plate Suppers, Lunch & Learn programs, PULSE Leadership conference and other opportunities specifically designed for OMWC students.

In addition, it will provide funds for scholars to take educational trips. Freshman and sophomore scholars visit with leaders and explore cultural facilities in regional cities such as Nashville, Tennessee; Birmingham, Alabama; and New Orleans, Louisiana. The endowment will also help Women’s Council seniors travel even farther to gain unique experiences in New York City, New York; Denver, Colorado; and Boston, Massachusetts.

“The Amne Young Richardson fund is designed to give future students the chance to learn about leadership, giving back to their community and gaining a deeper understanding of what life is all about,” Young said. “Academically, students not only learn an enormous amount while they’re on campus, but they can also learn a great deal outside the classroom.”

A student’s time as an undergraduate should provide them with the flexibility to explore unexpected academic interests and professional opportunities, she said.

“That’s certainly what happened to Amne when she was a student here,” Young said. “She was born in Greenville and grew up in the Delta, and she initially attended Ole Miss with the idea that she wanted to be a dental hygienist. She thought she would be here for just two years to get the pre-requisite courses she needed.

“But Amne loved the university. She joined the Kappa Delta sorority and ended up staying at Ole Miss for another two years to get a Bachelor of Science degree in Dietetics and Nutrition. She had so much fun working in the dining area at Lenoir Hall and learning far more about so many other health-related career options.”

In 2008, Amne graduated from the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s dental hygiene program.

She and Andrew Richardson married in 2010. They raised their three children, Prewitt, Graham and Liza in Sumrall, Mississippi, and Amne worked as a dental hygienist for dental practices in Hattiesburg.

Amne was diagnosed with a rare, extremely aggressive form of cancer in 2018.

“After her diagnosis, her family, members of the community and the congregation of the Heritage United Methodist Church provided Amne, her husband and her children with great support and care,” Young said. “She absolutely loved being a mom. She was so close to her three children and devoted the vast majority of the time she had left with them.”

The loss of Amne also inspired Young to create a free, two-day camp held annually at Camp Hopewell in Oxford for kids, ages 6 to 17, who are dealing with grief.

“Amne’s life was full of laughter, and we all benefited from her raucous sense of humor,” Young said. “While life is, of course, different now that Amne is gone, I so enjoy reminiscing about her with her friends and spending as much time as I can with her children.

“Amne continues to live on through her children and I know the endowment established in her name also means she will touch the lives of other young people for many, many years to come.”

To make a gift to the Amne Young Richardson Ole Miss Women’s Council Leadership Endowment or to learn more about supporting the Ole Miss Women’s Council, contact Suzanne Helveston, OMWC program director, at shelveston@olemiss.edu or 662-915-2956, or online here.

By Jonathan Scott/UM Development