Spotlight: Lonnie Abernethy

Dr. Lonnie Abernethy of El Paso has honored significant people in his life in a unique and generous way – establishing scholarship endowments at five different colleges and universities around the country. One of these is in the College of Engineering at New Mexico State University in memory of his son Charles who was a student here from 1978 to1983.

Dr. Abernethy grew up in North Carolina and obtained his bachelor’s degree in ceramic engineering at North Carolina State. When he was in graduate school at Ohio State, he met his first wife Margaret who was also pursuing a master’s in ceramic engineering. After graduation they moved to the Chicago area where he worked at Argonne National Laboratory as a materials engineer.

He was working for Texas Instruments in Dallas in 1963 when he interviewed for the position of dean of the School of Mines and Engineering at Texas Western University (now UTEP). When the family relocated in El Paso, Margaret wondered if she could adjust to living in the desert but soon began to enjoy the border region and became an avid gardener. At one point the family kept its own bees to ensure pollinators for her many flowers.

Abernethy served as dean of the college for six years and continued teaching metallurgy until retirement in 1984. Abernethy recalls that he and Charles shared many wonderful hiking experiences. Their favorite dog Napoleon often joined them on the trail. Although Margaret was not a hiker, she shared their enthusiasm for camping and travel.

Charles lived on campus during his student years at NMSU, participated in the Co-op program while studying electrical engineering, was a member of the amateur radio club and sang in the glee club. Cancer took Charles’ life in 1996 at the age of 36, a year after his mother.

Abernethy has remarried and acquired a new family but he still devotes a lot of time to his favorite hobby: online investing. He shares his success by funding the scholarship endowments he and Margaret had long discussed. He has endowments at Alfred University (where Margaret obtained her first degree), Trinity University in San Antonio, UTEP (established in Margaret’s memory following her death from cancer in 1995) and Colorado School of Mines as well as NMSU.

After a conversation with a professor friend, he recently began converting these funds to support graduate fellowships at those institutions with graduate programs. “I want to do my part to fill the gap in funds to support students interested in obtaining advanced degrees. I decided to direct the Charles Ernest Abernethy endowed fellowship to civil engineering because I was so impressed by the professionalism of the faculty in that department,” Abernethy stated.