COLUMBIA (AP) - A dispute has sprung up over what should happen to 102 acres of woodland that was donated to North Central Missouri College.
The land in northern Boone County was a gift from the estate of Jim Whitley, a former Missouri Department of Conservation employee who died in 2009, and his wife, Joanne, who died in 2010. Friends say the Whitleys intended for the land to stay undeveloped and donated it to the Trenton college for an outdoor classroom.
But Neil Nuttall, the president of North Central Missouri College, says the land is too far away from the campus to manage, and the college is looking into ways it can market the property. Besides the land, the college also received $450,000 from the couple's estate, he said. The school plans to use proceeds from the estate for its Barton Farm campus and to pay off debts.
Friends of the couple have formed a group and are vowing to fight.
"We're not going to go gently into the night on this," said Columbia resident Hank Ottinger, a longtime friend of the Whitleys. "We're going to do everything we can - legally, of course - to see that their wishes are fulfilled."
Muddying what can be done with the land is a disputed conservation easement the college added to the deed.
Greenbelt Land Trust of Mid-Missouri, which was supposed to monitor the terms of the easement, considered it so lacking that the organization refused to sign on. An independent land trust is typically designated to monitor and enforce conservation easements.
Two trustees for the college - Don Dalrymple and Steve Busch - said this week that the decision to sell had not been finalized.
"We have not made a decision on disposal at this point, to my recollection," Dalrymple said on Wednesday. "There is sentiment for selling it, and that is probably the most practical. But I am one board member out of six, so anything I say should not reflect on the board."