Alumnus Supports the Arts and International Studies in Fulbright College.

After Cleveland Burton graduated from Fulbright College in 1941, he attended Harvard Law School. During this time, he joined the U.S. Army and served as a first lieutenant in World War II for four years. After returning and completing law school, he settled in Shreveport, where he met and married Edith Rigsby, who passed away before him. The two were married more than 50 years. Burton spent 25 years as an attorney with the firm of Lunn, Irion, Switzer, Johnson and Salley. He moved to Texarkana, Texas, in 2007 to live with his cousin, Julia Peck Mobley.

Although he passed away in February, his commitment to the University of Arkansas will live on through gifts totaling $800,000 to benefit the college.

The gifts were made in the form of a $300,000 gift annuity and a $500,000 bequest, which will support the Cleveland C. Burton Professorship in International Programs as well as Cleveland C. Burton Undergraduate Fellowships in International Studies.

“My cousin Cleve Burton was one of the most knowledgeable and interesting people I have had the pleasure of knowing,” says Mobley. “His strive for knowledge was a constant; he was truly a unique person.”

Mobley, also a University of Arkansas graduate, is chairman and chief executive officer of Commercial Bank of Texarkana.

In addition to the recent gifts from Burton’s estate, he also donated to the College a 19-piece collection of porcelain birds by the renowned artist Edward Marshall Boehm. The collection is displayed on the fifth floor in Old Main outside the dean’s office.

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