Lordsburg Businesswoman Funds Scholarship at UNM’s Anderson School of Management

Marshallene (Marcie) Goodsell Koff, who was named the 2013 Hidalgo County Woman of the Year, established a charitable gift annuity at UNM to endow a scholarship at the Anderson School of Management for graduate student recipients. “I was unable to attend college myself but want others to have an opportunity I did not have,” said Marcie.

A charitable gift annuity is a simple contract through which a donor and/or her designated beneficiary is provided with a stream of fixed payments for life in exchange for a gift. Marcie said it was her attorney and close friend, Manuel D.V. Saucedo, a double UNM graduate with degrees in business and law, who told her about the benefits of establishing a gift annuity to fund the scholarship.

When Marcie graduated from Lordsburg High School in southwestern New Mexico in 1932 during the Great Depression, there were no jobs and no scholarships or financial aid available for college. Nevertheless, Marcie traded work at the high school for secretarial classes and was able to land a job as a clerk with the Works Progress Administration (WPA). While working for the WPA, she learned stenotype and was certified by the El Paso Business College.

“I always liked school,” said Marcie. “With the secretarial skills I learned, I was able to advance and obtain good jobs during difficult economic times.” She advanced at the WPA and was transferred to Deming, Alamogordo, Las Cruces, and eventually to Santa Fe and Salt Lake City. In 1942 Marcie was asked to come back to Santa Fe to work as secretary to the commanding general of Bruns Army Hospital where many of the Bataan Death March survivors eventually came to recuperate.

After the war Marcie moved to Tucson in search of work. But living in Tucson was expensive and salaries very low; so when she returned to Lordsburg in the late 1940s, Marcie threw herself into activities to benefit the community she so loved. As a member of Beta Sigma Phi, she helped with many fundraisers for the local hospital, the senior center, and the public library. She also became an active member of the Methodist Church, serving as the financial secretary for many years.

Eventually Marcie went to work for the man who would become her husband. First they operated the local airport together. Next they opened a lumber yard/building supply store. Marcie soon established herself as an accomplished businesswoman in these very nontraditional industries for women. “I enjoyed the challenges of running the businesses and was happy to be able to help others by providing employment for them,” said Marcie.

Marcie passed December 26, 2015.