Fall 2024 - One of Jennifer Henderson's favorite things about the Baylor Family is how the close friendships she formed during her first year at Baylor University have only gotten stronger over the years.

"I have a lot of great memories from freshman year. I was living in Collins, and my roommate and I become friends. In fact, I still see her," Jennifer said, adding that this friend would be staying at her second home in Waco during an upcoming Baylor football weekend. "We couldn't have been more different. She was Southern Baptist and wore dresses to class, and I was a small-town, Central Texas Methodist girl and wore blue jeans every day. But it was like our friendship was God-ordained."

Those bonds with Baylor friends have kept Jennifer connected to her Baylor experience over the years. And now this ongoing appreciation of Baylor's importance to her life and her recent interactions with the University have motivated her to make gift to Baylor through her estate plan.

A HELPING HAND

Jennifer said she hopes the scholarship created by her planned gift will enable more students to realize their dreams of earning a Baylor degree. The gift also honors someone very important to Jennifer — her late mother, Jeanette.

The Jeanette Cain Henderson Endowed Scholarship Fund will help make Baylor affordable to academically successful young men and women who are facing financial barriers to a college education. "Those are the kids I really want to help, because they remind me of my mother," Jennifer said.

With her mother's parents being unable to help pay for college, her mother enrolled in the University of Texas at the age of 16 with the financial assistance of her high school's superintendent. Jeanette lived with an aunt in Austin and worked at the UT library to make ends meet. After graduating at twenty, she gradually paid back the superintendent.

"My mother couldn't have gone to college had somebody not helped her," Jennifer said. "And I know there are many promising students in high school today in the same situation. I want to help them experience all that Baylor offers academically, spiritually, and socially."

GREEN AND GOLD

Jennifer said it's fitting that her mother's name will be part of the Baylor experience of future students because she played a decisive role in her own Baylor story.

"I was in the top 10% of my high school class and could have gone anywhere I wanted, but I just couldn't decide," Jennifer said. "And then one day, Mother said, 'Sit down here at the kitchen table and sign this piece of paper.' After doing what she asked, I said, 'What did I just sign?' She said, 'You just signed up for your dorm room at Baylor. You're going to Baylor.'"

Looking back, Jennifer said it's clear that Baylor prepared her for success in life and her career. In addition to studying business, she was a member of Delta Delta Delta. "Being a student was the best four years of my life," she said.

After earning a B.B.A. in real estate in 1980, Jennifer graduated from Texas Tech University with an M.S. in tax accounting in 1983. She is in her 42nd year as a wealth advisor and is currently a senior vice president at UBS Financial Services in Bryan, Texas, managing over $520 million for her clients.

Jennifer has previously made gifts to McLane Stadium and Foster Pavilion and loves cheering on the Bears as much as possible. Taking Highway 6 up to her second home in Waco, she frequently goes to Baylor football and men's and women's basketball games with her husband, Ray Thompson, and a host of Baylor-connected friends.

"When you're a Baylor grad and you meet other Baylor alumni, you pretty much know the quality of people they are," she said.