Alumnus' Daughter Leaves $484,020 for Medical Student Scholarships

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A bequest of $484,020 from the late Gretchen Joyner, daughter of the late Arthur Goetzman, M.D. '27, will be used to fund scholarships for students in the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in memory of her father.

"It is her gift to the University at Buffalo," said Mrs. Joyner's husband, Taylor Joyner, Ph.D. "She is respecting what her parents' wishes were. Arthur wanted to do that and she's carried that on."

Mrs. Joyner's bequest will be put into an endowment, The Arthur C. Goetzman, M.D. '27, Dorothy D. Goetzman and Gretchen E. Joyner Endowed Scholarship Fund, the earnings from which will provide unrestricted scholarship funds for medical students.

"We are very grateful to Gretchen Joyner for her gift to UB's medical school," said Margaret W. Paroski, M.D., interim dean of the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and interim vice president for health affairs. "Scholarships make an incredible difference in helping our students obtain an education they can afford."

Paroski added: "We also gain a new friend in Dr. Joyner and a renewed appreciation for his late wife, Gretchen, who understood the value that her father placed on his medical school training, and how she could make that same education happen for others."

Taylor Joyner said his late wife's father held fond memories of his time at UB, where he earned a degree in ophthalmology. Goetzman practiced in the Rochester area before living in Florida, Arizona and New Mexico after retiring. Upon his death, he left a foundation, managed by Gretchen Joyner, who decided to give back to UB in accordance with her father's wishes.

The Joyners met when her public relations firm sent Gretchen to work on a photo shoot in Taylor's home, which he had built for himself in the Mohave Desert. A retired chemist, Joyner at the time worked for the Navy.

"The architect and the designer thought it was a good house. They chose to furnish the house of this bachelor chemist living in the middle of the Mohave Desert," Joyner recalled. After some work by Gretchen and others, photos of his house were printed in several home magazines and in the Los Angeles Times. "I spent two years persuading her to move into the house," Joyner noted.

At the time of Gretchen Joyner's death, the couple lived in Socorro, N.M.