When Lynn Nagy Farrar ’61 was a SUNY Oswego student, there was no tuition. “My parents couldn’t have afforded it 
if there had been,” said Farrar, who went on to a career as a mathematics teacher for schools in New York, including West Genesee (Camillus), Pittsford and Rochester. Farrar counts herself among the “very fortunate” who have been able to get the education they needed to have successful careers, she said. That’s why she and husband, Neil, decided to establish the Lynn Nagy Farrar ’61 Endowed Scholarship to support a student with financial need majoring in education. “We needed to give back,” Neil said. “With scholarships, today’s students can have the pressure taken off the financial part in order to reach their goals.”
As a student, Lynn was active in Theta Chi Rho sorority and Kappa Delta Pi honor society. Although she and Neil had attended the same high school in Solvay, N.Y., they had only been acquaintances then. Fate brought them back together when Lynn took a walk with friends on the breakwall that leads to the Oswego lighthouse. At the lighthouse was Neil—who later completed his degree at Syracuse University—on active duty for the U.S. Coast Guard. They have been together since; the couple will celebrate their 53rd wedding anniversary in June. They have two daughters, Susan and Sarah.
Reflecting on her decision to attend SUNY Oswego to become a teacher— a profession choice that her father had predicted for her from a young age— Lynn hopes the scholarship helps another student prepare for a wonderful life of teaching, as it did for her. In fact, when it came time to select a college, Lynn applied only to Oswego.
“There wasn’t any question about it,” she said. “After all, it was Oswego.”