DePauw Stories

Thomas Shackleton Yeo ’70 has established the Cynthia VanTassel Yeo Endowed Scholarship to benefit art and art history students at DePauw.

The scholarship honors Yeo’s late wife, Cynthia VanTassel Yeo ’70, who earned an art degree from DePauw and developed a lifelong passion for learning, making and teaching art. Yeo says their DePauw years were some of their most influential.

Mark Ford ’70, Yeo’s Delta Tau Delta fraternity brother, roommate and lifelong friend, introduced the couple, and they had their first date at the old Fluttering Duck. During their college years, Tom and Cynthia, a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma, were both leaders in their Greek houses. Tom was also a member of Student Senate and the Community Concerns Committee, an outgrowth of student unrest related to the Vietnam War.

“Most of the DePauw friends that we made while we were in school remained our very best friends throughout life,” Yeo says.

Tom and Cynthia were married in 1971 and soon moved to New York, where Cynthia furthered her art education with printmaking and figure drawing. When Tom and Cynthia returned to Zionsville, Indiana, in 1979 to raise their three children, Cynthia began classes in watercolor, was elected to the board of the SullivanMunce Art Center and, with close artist friends, established The Artist’s Loft studio/gallery.

The couple remained involved with DePauw, both holding positions on the house corporation boards of their former living units, and Yeo served for six years on the Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Their son Charlie Yeo graduated from DePauw in 2000, the fourth generation of the family to graduate from DePauw. The first was Tom’s maternal grandparents, members of the Class of 1909, who were engaged to be married at the little cemetery across from Blackstock Stadium. Many of Tom’s aunts and uncles were also DePauw graduates.

When Cynthia died in 2008, Yeo began thinking about a way to honor her life while supporting a DePauw student in the fine arts. Conversations with DePauw led to what he says was a wonderful relationship with charitable gifts officer Scott Stetson. Stetson coordinated several school visits, including one when Tom and Charlie met with students and professors at the Peeler Art Center.

“That campus visit was as good as I could have imagined,” Yeo says. “My son and I talk about that experience today, and how wonderful it was to actually be exposed to the students and professors and sense their excitement and passion for learning.”

Yeo is delighted to continue the family’s DePauw legacy through the endowed scholarship, and he hopes that others will contribute. “One of the pleasures of creating this scholarship,” he says, “is that all my children are involved and someday my grandchildren will have the opportunity to be involved with this wonderful institution of learning.”

Those interested in learning about scholarship giving should contact Executive Director of Charitable Giving Steve Trautman at (765) 658-4085 or steventrautman@depauw.edu.