Darrell Wyrick, 81, raised millions for UI

In the early 1970s, Bob Downer watched from the house next door as Darrell Wyrick closed the deal on a $3.5 million gift from Roy Carver to the University of Iowa.

'At that point, he practically lived at Wyrick's home,” Downer said of Carver, the late industrialist. 'That's a bit of an exaggeration, but he was there several times a week, it seemed like. They were spending a lot of time putting this together.”

Downer, a former Board of Regents member who knew Mr. Wyrick for 50 years and was his next-door neighbor at the time, said he was committed to securing the donation, which would finance a medical clinic, an addition to the university art museum and the wrestling program, among other things.

'This was one that Darrell didn't want to let get away,” Downer said. 'This was such a large gift compared to what they had been able to attract up to that point.”

Mr. Wyrick, a chemical engineering graduate who became the long-time president of the UI Foundation, died last month at 81. According to an obituary from his family, he suffered from Parkinson's disease.

Mr. Wyrick's blend of humor, optimism and drive solidified a fledling foundation that fueled major growth at the UI.

The foundation was founded in 1956, said Lynette Marshall, its current president. But for the first several years, it was run by the university's alumni association, she said. Mr. Wyrick became its first full-time staff member in 1962.

'He started with an embryo,” said John Colloton, former CEO of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. 'The foundation didn't exist when he came on board.”

'Darrell Wyrick will always be viewed as the founding father of the University of Iowa Foundation that we know today,” Colloton said.

Among the projects Mr. Wyrick helped raise funds for, Marshall said, were the university's Museum of Art, Carver Hawkeye Arena, Pappajohn Business Building, Blank Honors Center and Seamans Center for Engineering Arts and Sciences.

Mr. Wyrick also helped raise money for resoration of Old Capitol and for the Iowa Endowment 2000 campaign, Marshall said.

By the time Mr. Wyrick stepped down as foundation president in 1998, it had raised $500 million, Marshall said.

'He devoted his life to creating this organization, and he and his wife and his family were deeply committed to this,” she said.

Mr. Wyrick's leadership of the foundation also came as the university relied more on outside donations, Marshall and Colloton said.

'Darrell was right in the thick of that movement to bring more external funds into the university,” Colloton said.

Raising money for the university was more than a job to Mr. Wyrick, Downer said.

'He had a strong commitment to the programs for which funds were being raised,” Downer said.

'He saw that the money was a means to an end, the end being to build and improve the university for what it could do in teaching, research and service. I think he was all about seeing the university as the strongest institution that it could possibly be.”

Mr. Wyrick is survived by wife Shirley, sons Craig Wyrick-Solari and Lane Syrick, daughter Anne Wyrick and and sister Vera Hellweg.

A memorial will be held June 27 at the Levitt Center, 1 W. Park Road, Iowa City, according to the obituary. A reception following the memorial will be held in the building's rotunda, which is named after Mr. Wyrick.

l Comments: (319) 398-8204; andrew.phillips@thegazette.com