YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Retired nurse Susan Spencer Briney has given $100,000 to the Youngstown State University Foundation to fund the Susan Spencer Briney Scholarship for students who pursue undergraduate degrees in nursing, Paul McFadden, president of the foundation, announced today.

Briney grew up in Boardman, attended the Choffin Career Center to become a licensed practical nurse and earned her designation and a registered nurse from the Sharon Regional Hospital School of Nursing. She worked 30 years in the profession, mostly in geriatric and hospice nursing, taking early retirement in 2011 after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Briney never realized the impact her parents had on students when they started a scholarship endowment at the YSU Foundation -- not until the thank you letters began arriving, McFadden says. She was unaware until recently that the scholarship endowment her parents established in 2005, the William and Margaret Spencer Scholarship, had grown to nearly $1 million.

When her parents died within a month of each other early this year, she became the point of contact for the scholarships. “I’ve received 35 thank you notes from students over the past few months,” she says. “It’s been amazing to see what an influence my parents’ generosity is having, even now.”

William Spencer conducted a successful life insurance and financial planning business in Youngstown. He was appointed to the YSU Foundation Board of Trustees in 1968, served 45 years, and in 2013 was named a trustee emeritus in recognition of his service.

“I’m a better nurse than I am anything else -- I’ve always felt like that’s what I was put on this earth to do, and I miss it every day,” Susan Briney said in a prepared statement. “It makes me happy to realize that now I’m in a position to cultivate another generation of nurses.”

Briney and her husband, James, live in Fremont, where she is leading an effort to establish a hospice.

Pictured: Susan Spencer Briney and the late William Spencer.

SOURCE: YSU News Center.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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