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The Rhind Family Scholarship

The Rhind Family Scholarship is awarded with preference given to students from the states of Illinois, Indiana or Wisconsin who demonstrate need and exceptional academic promise. It was established by James T. Rhind, a member of the Class of 1944 and Life Trustee of the College, and his wife, Laura.

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Following his high school graduation, James Rhind worked for a year to save money for College. Arriving on the Hill in 1940, when a scholarship to support his studies became available, he would pledge Sigma Phi and letter in football. At the end of his sophomore year, he joined the U.S. Army Reserve and transferred to Ohio State University, where he earned his B.A. in 1944 through an accelerated wartime program. Majoring in history, he graduated with Phi Beta Kappa distinction.

Less than a year after arriving at Ohio State, Jim was called to active service during World War II. Assigned by the Army to study Japanese at the University of Michigan, he served in military intelligence and was discharged as a corporal following the war’s conclusion in 1946. He remained in Tokyo one additional year, working for the U.S. Department of War as a civilian translator of Japanese. Upon his return to the states, he enrolled at Harvard Law School, earning his LL.B. degree cum laude in 1950. While at Harvard, he met Laura H. Campbell, who was in the employ of the Law School’s dean. The pair was married in April 1958.

Returning to his native Chicago after Harvard, Jim joined the large and prestigious law firm of Bell, Boyd & Lloyd. With the exception of 1953-54, when he was employed in Washington as congressional liaison for the State Department’s Foreign Operations Administration, he spent his entire 60-year career with Bell, Boyd & Lloyd where he specialized in corporate and business law. Jim served as chairman of the firm’s executive committee from 1976 to 1986, and as managing partner for seven years, before becoming counsel in 1993. Jim retired in 2009.

A onetime chairman of the Cook County Young Republican organization and a Young Republican national committeeman, Jim also served on the board of governors of the United Republican Fund of Illinois, was an elder of the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, former commissioner of the United Presbyterian Church’s General Assembly and a member of the executive committee, Division of Metropolitan Mission and Church Extension, of the Chicago Presbytery. Additionally, he was a member of the E.J. Dalton Youth Center board, past president of the Illinois Children’s Home and Aid Society and trustee emeritus of the University of Chicago. Fond recollections of his first two years of undergraduate study kept him closely connected to Hamilton; he was elected as a Charter Trustee in 1975 and served as vice chair of the Board from 1980 to 1990, at which time he was named a Life Trustee.

Along with his wife, Laura, Jim was also particularly active in promoting the arts, especially music. A former member of the Arts Council of the State of Illinois, he also served as a governing member of the Orchestra Association of Chicago, overseer of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and a trustee and vice chair of the Ravinia Festival Association, which operates one of the country’s most successful and respected summer programs for the performing arts. Additionally, he served on Hamilton’s Performing Arts Advisory Committee and, with his wife, Laura, established the James T. and Laura C. Rhind Arts Fund to support performances in Wellin Hall.

Jim battled cancer for more than a year before passing away in January 2013. His wife, Laura, died in April 2015. The Rhinds are survived by two sons, Jamie ’83, and David ’85, and a daughter, Constance.

September 2015