Guess that whole "Don't judge a book by its cover" thing applies here.
Bequest by Alton 'Ikey' Scott, who lived in a mobile home near Yellow Pine, Ala., is second-largest in university history
<a href="http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/102698379760170.xml" target="_blank">Link from Mobile Register</a>
07/18/02
By JEFF AMY
Staff Reporter
The spotlight that Alton "Ikey" Scott spent so much of his life dodging will find him today, 18 months after he died, as the University of Alabama announces that the late Yellow Pine resident left $8 million to the school's College of Engineering.
The gift is the second largest single bequest ever given to Alabama, university officials said Wednesday, behind only the $16 million the university received from Hugh Culverhouse's estate in 1998. Alabama's business college is named for Culverhouse.
University officials, who declined to be identified before a news conference in Tuscaloosa this morning, said the money would be used to fund engineering research. The college, made up of eight departments, has about 1,900 students and 90 faculty members.
Scott's huge bequest may come as a surprise to many. Mr. Ikey, as he was commonly known in Washington County, never liked to travel far from home and lived for 25 years in a mobile home near U.S. 45 in Yellow Pine.
"You could look over at the baseboards and see outside through holes in the wall," said S.J. Laurie, a Chatom lawyer who helped process Scott's will.
The contrast between Culverhouse and Alton N. Scott is in structive.
Culverhouse's death was front-page news across Florida, where the tax accountant made a fortune in real estate and was well known as the owner of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccanneers.
When the 81-year-old Scott died Jan. 20, 2001, the Washington County resident was remembered as a "self-employed investor" in a 44-word obituary in the Mobile Register. Mr. Ikey was buried in a Chatom cemetery after a small funeral.
Laurie said among Scott's holdings were about 1,900 acres of timberland, a "substantial interest" in the West Chatom oil field, and stocks and bonds.
Scott and his two brothers inherited a small fortune in timberland and oil rights from their father Clarence Scott, commonly known as "C.D." C.D. Scott, who operated a store in Yellow Pine, just two miles from Mississippi, bought land on the cheap decades ago, when the area's deep forests were dominated by the turpentine industry.
Fruitdale resident Mike Savage said Mr. Ikey's father purchased land in partnership with Savage's grandfather and two other men. When C.D. died, he left his holdings to his three sons. Thousands of acres, they mainly lie north of Fruitdale along U.S. 45, lapping over a little into Mississippi.
One brother cut his timber, but Mr. Ikey never did.
"Mr. Ikey, he didn't need to cut timber," said Laurie. "Some folks can just afford to be gentlemen."
Mr. Ikey lived in the family home in Yellow Pine after his father died, looking after his business interests. One of his fascinations was oil. Scott was interested in seismographic reports, for example, mapping out future areas for exploration.
"When the TV show Dallas came on, I started picking at him and calling him J.R. Ewing," said Savage. "He was always wheeling and dealing in the oil business."
But Mr. Ikey may have made far more money picking stocks and other securities. He studied the market closely, said Savage and his niece Julia Scott, and apparently was wildly successful. The niece, who lives in Del Mar, Calif., north of San Diego, said her uncle once told her of his success.
"His goal at the time was to make a million dollars profit in the stock market in a year, and he said he had done that," Julia Scott said.
Scott had already endowed scholarships at the university for Washington County students. He had also given money to the University of Southern Mississippi, Savage said.
Mr. Ikey's philanthropy during his life was quiet, although it was well known in Washington County that he bought band uniforms for Fruitdale High School. Scott's brothers, Howard and Clarence, have given several million dollars worth of land and money for the benefit of the Washington County Library. Clarence Scott has also given money to the University of Alabama, and his daughter Janet Scott Denton, will be at the announcement today.
Some describe him as a hermit, or reclusive, but the tall, stout and bald Scott was probably too well-known a figure in western Washington County and across the state line in Mississippi's Wayne County to qualify for those descriptions. For example, Julia Scott said he appeared almost daily at the Phillips 66 oil facility on Alabama 56 to "try to tell them how to run their business."
Mr. Ikey never married, maybe because of a true love whose heartbreak he never recovered from, according to one story, said niece Julia Scott. And it's hard to say that he had many close friends.
"If he didn't like you, he wouldn't give you the time of day," said Glenda Deese, who kept house for Mr. Ikey for much of the last 20 years.
Scott believed that talk was not to be wasted. He got to the point of his business, then tended to announce he was done with a phrase like "that'll be all now," and leave.
"He wasn't a person just to go be making conversation with," Savage said.
He also wasn't one to be tied down. Invite him to dinner, said Julia Scott, and he might come, but he would never commit in advance. Appear on his doorstep, and it was a gamble whether he would even answer, even if you were the RegionsBank officials from Mobile who managed his land.
"He might let you in and he might not," Deese said.
All agree that Scott tended to stay out of the spotlight.
"Mr. Ikey was a private person," Deese said.
But Julia Scott believes that he secretly liked to be fussed over, and thus today's press conference might not be so inappropriate after all.
Mr. Ikey didn't graduate from the university his money will benefit, and when he attended, didn't study engineering. University officials said Scott attended Alabama from 1937 to 1940, studying business. His niece said Scott served in Europe during World War II, but it's unclear if that's the reason he never finished his degree.
Mr. Ikey's oldest brother, Clarence, who lives in a nursing home in Hattiesburg, Miss., graduated from Alabama with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1929, university officials said. Julia Scott said her father, Howard, earned both a bachelor's degree and a law degree from Alabama. Howard Scott, who practiced law in Chatom, died in 1978.
There were clues that Mr. Ikey was interested in the university, and that the university was interested in his money. First, there was Scott's crimson windbreaker and hounds-tooth hat -- like Bear Bryant.
"If he was on the road and going somewhere, he had that hat on." Savage said.
And there were the football tickets. It's unclear whether Mr. Ikey bought them, or whether the university gave them to him to court his generosity, but they were darn good seats, said Julia Scott, and people vied to get them when Scott gave them away.
