Newspaper Publisher Donates $3 Million to University of Michigan

By: E&P Staff Newspaper publisher Stanford Lipsey has donated $3 million to aid the University of Michigan's restoration efforts of its historic Student Publications building, home to Lipsey's formidable journalism education almost 60 years ago.

Lipsey, a former owner and publisher of the Sun Newspapers, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for investigative reporting, graduated from the University of Michigan in 1948 with an economics degree and was a photographer for the student-run Michigan Daily and photography editor for the Michiganesian yearbook.

"It's a privilege to be back at Michigan to help restore the Student Publications Building I worked in 60 years ago," Lipsey said in a statement. "Quality journalism enriches all our lives. That is why I am so happy to be part of a process that will take this historic building into the 21st century, with the technology to assist the growth of the students."

After gradating from the university, Lipsey served in the Air Force, becoming editor of the newspaper at the Strategic Command Headquarters in his native Nebraska.

In 1969, Lipsey sold Sun Newspapers to investor Warren Buffett. In 1982, when the Buffett-owned Buffalo (N.Y.) Evening News launched a morning edition, Lipsey took over as publisher. In 1988, he was named a vice president of Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

This is not Lipsey's first restoration effort. The newspaperman was a founding member of the Martin House Restoration Corp. in Buffalo, which restored one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most notable prairie houses.