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Bar News - September 6, 2002 Giving Back By: Lisa Sandford Retired NH attorney Arnie Hanson and his wife, Della, give UNH $2 million to establish a scholarship fund for Coos County students. NH ATTORNEY ARNOLD P. Hanson, Sr., and his wife, Della, wanted to pay back the Coos County community in which they were born and raised and in which Arnie Hanson practiced law for 40 years. So the Hansons recently made a $2 million gift to the University of New Hampshire Foundation to establish the Arnold P. and Della A. Hanson Endowment Scholarship, which will provide students from Coos County with four-year scholarships to help cover the full cost of attending UNH. The fund will benefit Coos County students for the next 50 years, then will be available to students from across the state, although preference will still be given to applicants from Coos County, according to Hanson. Hanson, a 1948 graduate of UNH and a 51-year member of the NH Bar, said he and his wife "have a special spot in our hearts for the school," even though Della Hanson is not a UNH alumna. Arnie Hanson entered UNH with the goal of becoming an engineer, as was his father's wish, but the discipline didn't appeal to him, he said. After a year, he left UNH to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II, in which he served from 1943 to 1946. Upon his return to UNH, in the middle of his junior year (he received credit for courses he'd taken in the service and was able to skip his sophomore year), Hanson decided he wanted to go to law school. With the help of Dr. Norman Alexander, who at the time was head of the school's government department, Hanson was able to transfer out of the engineering program and into the college of liberal arts and the pre-law club. Hanson had to take as many as 26 credits per semester, and attend summer school, to get in all his required courses and graduate on time. Dr. Alexander also spoke to Boston University Law School and helped Hanson get into that school without taking certain examinations. Hanson graduated from UNH in the spring of 1948 with a degree in political science, married his wife six days later and entered BU Law in the fall of 1948, graduating with his law degree in 1951. The first major contribution the Hansons made to UNH was a $500,000 gift in 1998 to establish a program named in honor of the late Dr. Alexander to recognize teaching excellence. Hanson refers to Alexander as his mentor and remembers fondly the help Alexander gave him in pursuing his law career. After earning his law degree, Hanson was offered a job at a prestigious Boston law firm. Instead, he opted to return to his native Berlin, where both he and his wife had been born and raised. He opened a law practice in Berlin in 1951 and a few years later formed a partnership with the late Arthur Bergeron. Hanson is proud to have been a lawyer for the common people, saying that he believes Bergeron and Hanson, located on Pleasant Street, was "the first law office in New Hampshire that had a street-level entrance." Although Bergeron retired from the firm in 1980, Hanson continued to practice, bringing up to three other lawyers into the firm. He retired in 1990 due to health problems, after nearly 40 years practicing law in Berlin. Hanson said that establishing the endowment scholarship for Coos students is a way of paying back both the community that supported him - and that he called home for so many years - and the university that helped him find his path in life. "I enjoyed a good law practice in Berlin. Clients traveled from all over the county to come to me. This (scholarship) is payback. It's something we could afford to do and a way to say thank you to the community of Coos County," Hanson said. "I also feel indebted to both UNH and BU Law. I was very fortunate to want to be a lawyer and to have the help of people to make that possible." In addition to the $2 million gift to UNH, the Hansons have also given $500,000 to BU Law. The Hansons came up with the idea for a UNH scholarship fund for Coos County students about three or four years ago. Hanson described the North Country as "not a place to try to get rich" because of its limited industry and lack of jobs. As a result of this economy, students in Coos County rarely talk about college because they typically can't afford to go, Hanson said. Also, Coos County is far removed from UNH, so students are often unfamiliar with all the programs and opportunities that exist at the university. "This scholarship fund is a way to promote UNH and help the kids of Coos County. Hopefully it'll be one more thing to help get them to the school," said Hanson. Diane Koski, vice president of the UNH Foundation, said that she has had the "honor and privilege" of working with the Hansons on their two major gifts to the university. "They feel so passionate about this kind of giving," she said. Koski said the Hansons are excited about establishing a scholarship fund that will benefit the community in which they were both raised, and in which they then raised their own family and spent their professional lives. "This is an exciting, enabling gift from the Hansons and for the students of Coos County," she said. Hanson was taught early on the value of education by his father, a machinist who, although he quit school, always stressed the importance of learning. Arnie Hanson, who received various scholarships and worked during his career at UNH and was sent $2 a week spending money by his sister - a graduate of Keene Teaching College and a teacher in Rochester at the time - passed that value on to his own children. All three completed graduate school and his son, Arnold P. Hanson, Jr., graduated from BU Law. (He is now an inactive member of the NH Bar.) Arnie and Della Hanson hope that their gift to UNH will continue to impart to students of Coos County the value of an education. The Hansons have also supported law-related philanthropies, including making a $10,000 gift to the NH Bar Foundation, of which Arnie Hanson has been a Fellow since the inception of the Fellows program in the mid-'80s. He is a former NH Bar president. The Hansons now have residences in Nashua and Florida. Arnie spends much of his retirement playing golf.
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