Bill Lane gives $5 million to Stanford Bill Lane gives $5 million to Stanford (March 02, 2005)

** Gift supports study of North American West.

Current and future students of the culture of the North American West may find reason to rejoice in recent news from Stanford University.

L.W. "Bill" Lane Jr. -- a 1942 Stanford alumnus, the former longtime publisher of Sunset magazine and a Portola Valley resident -- donated $5 million to the university's Center for the Study of the North American West, the university announced Friday.

Mr. Lane's gift and a $4 million donation from the Menlo Park-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation will go to support faculty, graduate and post-graduate students, course development, conferences, internships, and undergraduate research assistantships, said school spokeswoman Lisa Kwiatkowski.

Beginning this summer, internships will be offered at Yellowstone National Park.

The center, founded in 2002 and part of the university's School of Humanities and Sciences, will bear Mr. Lane's name, said Ms. Kwiatkowski.

The gifts will boost current efforts to connect studies in humanities and social sciences to biological and environmental sciences affecting the United States west of the Mississippi River, Canada west of Ontario, northern Mexico and the Pacific Rim.

"We intend to make Stanford a better regional citizen, and to make the center a place where policymakers, journalists and scholars can come together to deliberate about the region's problems and prospects," said David Kennedy, a history professor and a co-director of the center.

"All of us at the university are honored to have Bill Lane's name associated with this program," said Mr. Kennedy. "Bill loves to ride horses, has been a pilot, and booked a ticket into space. I believe he is the only person named an honorary park ranger in both the national and California park systems. If there is such a thing as a prototypical man of the West, Bill is it."

Mr. Lane's career includes presidential appointments as U.S. ambassador to Australia and ambassador at large in Japan.

In a statement, Mr. Lane said the center's western focus reminded him of opening lines from the poem "The Coming American" by Samuel Walter Foss (1858-1911): "Bring me men to match my mountains, bring me men to match my plains, men with empires in their purpose, and new eras in their brains."

In many ways, Stanford University represents this challenge, said Mr. Lane.

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