Roy Park's will benefits foundation p. 14

By: Editorial Staff

ROY PARK WILLED a controlling interest in the Park Communications media group to a nonprofit foundation which, in turn, is to allow employees with at least three years of service to buy stock in the Ithaca, N.Y.-based company.
"I believe that this would tend to encourage such employees to devote their best efforts to the improvement of the company and the enhancement of the value of its stock," Park wrote in the will, dated Nov. 19, 1992.
Park died Oct. 25 of a heart attack in New York City. He was 83.
Park owned 89% of the shares in the company, which is valued at $429 million. He willed 57% of his shares, equal to 51% of the company stock, to the Park Foundation, the Ithaca Journal reported. Park left much of the rest of his stock to his family.
Beginning in 1962, Park built one of the nation's biggest media empires, buying newspapers and broadcast outlets in smaller cities in the East and South. This year, Forbes magazine listed him as the 175th-richest American with an estimated worth of $550 million.
Aside from the foundation and his heirs, the biggest chunk that Park set aside was $750,000 for Ithaca College, where the school of communications is named for him.
He also left $500,000 to his alma mater, North Carolina State University, for a scholarship in his name; $250,000 in a trust for his church, First Presbyterian of Ithaca; and $100,000 to the Tompkins County United Way.
Park decreed that most of his wealth go to his wife, Dorothy; his children, Roy Park Jr. and Adelaide Park Gomer; and other relatives.
Dorothy Park has assumed her husband's place at the head of Park Communications' board of directors. Park Jr. has joined the board.
Park Communications owns 111 newspapers, nine television stations and 22 radio stations.