THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 9, 1995 TAG: 9502090425
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
A New Jersey businessman with an interest in promoting world peace and climbing mountains has donated $1 million to the College of William and Mary.
Most of Jack Borgenicht's gift will endow a position for a visiting peace scholar at the college's Wendy and Emery Reves Center for International Studies. The rest will establish a permanent endowment for the Department of Kinesiology, the study of human muscle movement.
Borgenicht's relationship with William and Mary began in 1988, when, at age 78, he decided he wanted to climb Mount Everest. To get in shape, he sought out Ken Kambis, an exercise specialist and a William and Mary kinesiology professor.
Borgenicht never did attempt Everest, but in 1990, he reached the top of the highest peak in the continental United States, California's Mount Whitney. Two years later, on the day after his 81st birthday, Borgenicht reached the top of Mount Rainier in Washington.
``The next goal that I have is Kilimanjaro'' in Tanzania, Borgenicht said Tuesday from his home in Long Valley, N.J.
Borgenicht does not have an alma mater of his own. The youngest of 14 children, he attended New York University for two years but dropped out in 1930 because of the Depression.
``I never really wanted to attend college. I found it very boring. But my father insisted,'' Borgenicht said. ``But by virtue of the fact that he was going bankrupt, I talked my mother into convincing him to let me go to work.''
Borgenicht's father ran a clothing manufacturing business in the heart of New York's garment district. Borgenicht went on to become one of the biggest children's clothing makers in the United States. He invested his earnings in real estate. by CNB