Ninety-one students, faculty and community members forming 24 teams, gathered together to play in the Jinkerson Golf Scramble Friday to honor the memory of an ACU professor and raise funds for a scholarship in his name.

Dr. Darryl Jinkerson, former professor of management, died six months ago of a heart attack.

After his death, Jinkerson’s daughters and his close friend, Dr. Phil Vardiman, associate professor of management, started the Darryl and Cindy Jinkerson Study Abroad Scholarship Endowment in his honor.

M.C. Jennings, recruiter and marketing manager for COBA, said a starting fund of $25,000 must be met in order to start an endowment.

Although the final total from the day has not yet been added up, Rachel Goodman (’11), Jinkerson’s daughter, said she thinks the golf scramble may have raised around $10,000.  This is twice the amount they expected to receive.

“We raised about $15,000 before the tournament, so hopefully we’ll get the $10,000 today,” Goodman said.

Cindy Jinkerson, wife of the late Dr. Jinkerson, was overwhelmed by the amount of money they were able to raise.

“People kind of discouraged us from doing an endowment when we started. They said it would take a long time to raise that $25,000,” Jinkerson said.  “It’s amazing that we might do it by April when we just started in December.”

Michael Smith, junior accounting major from Denton, participates in the Jinkerson Scramble. (Optimist photo by Curtis Christian)

Vardiman said the support they received at the tournament exceeded his expectations.

“I was very pleased and it lifted my spirits,” Vardiman said. “We are so blessed.”

J.J. Blass, senior business management major from Arlington who traveled to Australia with Jinkerson, assisted with the tournament.

“He was very involved,” Blass said. “A very passionate man about what he did and so a lot of us decided to hop on and share in that with everything we could.”

Garrett Sublette (’03), who played in the tournament, was in the first class Jinkerson taught at ACU and often played golf with him while he was a student.

“It’s a good cause and I wanted to honor his legacy that he left here,” Sublette said. Sublette was one of several former students of Jinkerson’s who came to Abilene for the event.

Goodman said she felt honored to see such a turnout for the tournament.

“That means they loved my dad so much that they wanted to come out and support it,” she said. “I think it’s just kind of humbling and makes me wish that I could live up to what he lived up to.”

Students can still donate to the scholarship by following the link on the COBA events page at http://www.acu.edu/academics/coba/events/ .