Footsteps
Brian and Lowell Hahn choose to give back to the family legacy.
Brian meeting with the inaugural Clella Hahn scholarship recipient, Hannah Poort, in 2017.
The Hahn family knows a thing or two about legacies.
It started with George Franklin Hahn (“Frank”), who came to Washburn from the family homestead in the 1930s to earn his undergraduate and law degrees. A standout student and athlete, Frank met and married a Washburn English major named Doris and, after graduation, the pair returned to Phillipsburg, Kansas, where they started a family and he started a law practice.
That practice would eventually involve his son, Lowell, who also attended Washburn to get his undergraduate and law degrees in 1958 and 1961, respectively. Like Frank, Lowell was also a very active student – Air Force ROTC, President of Alpha Delta fraternity, and the first editor-in-chief of the Washburn Law Journal. And, like his father before him, Lowell met someone while at Washburn – an early education major with a passion for teaching named Clella. The two wed and moved into married student housing while Lowell completed law school. Then, after graduation and following a stint in the Air Force JAG Corps, Lowell and Clella returned to Phillipsburg where Lowell joined his father in the practice of law.
Their son, Brian, was the third in the line to find his way to Washburn, in the early 80s. He pledged the same Alpha Delta fraternity his father had and was a similarly active student: varsity tennis, student newspaper, Washburn Singers. Ultimately, however, instead of following the family path into law, Brian earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism and business, respectively, eventually moving to Chicago where he built a successful career as an investment advisor.
Lowell and Brian have been as active as Washburn alums as they were as students. Lowell served on the law school board of governors and, in 1987, joined the Washburn University Foundation Board of Trustees, with Brian following in those footsteps, joining the foundation board himself exactly 30 years later. So, you might think that when Brian and Lowell put their heads together to discuss what philanthropic legacy their family wanted to leave at Washburn, that it would be a story of fathers and sons, law and business.
Lowell Hahn, in the Washburn Law editor’s office
Instead, the Hahn family legacy they felt most passionate about and the name they chose to carry forward in leaving something behind wasn’t Frank, Lowell or Brian’s…but Clella’s.
While the men in the Hahn family pursued law and investment advisory careers, Clella was teaching. She taught in Topeka and then in Phillipsburg as Lowell began his law career. Clella was beloved by students – if you came through Phillipsburg public schools during her time there, everyone knew “Mrs. Hahn.” She taught kindergarten through third grade and, before semi-retiring to raise her own four children, was named Kansas Teacher of the Year. As her children got older and Lowell’s career progressed, Clella returned to teaching, starting her own preschool. When Kansas began to organize a Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) program, Lowell and Clella’s interests in law and education converged, and she was one of the first to sign on. Clella became a tireless and devoted advocate for neglected and abused children in the state, eventually being named Kansas CASA Case Manager of the Year.
Clella Hahn
When Clella passed away in 2015, the family established the Clella Hahn Elementary Education Scholarship in her memory. And when Lowell and Brian heard about the “I Will for Washburn” campaign, they decided to take advantage by documenting their estate intentions – featuring, first and foremost, that the funds be directed to the scholarship in Clella’s name.
“The I Will for Washburn campaign helped my dad and me accelerate what we were already talking about, which was honoring mom’s legacy,” said Brian. “We talked about it and couldn’t think of a more impactful way to give than supporting education students at Washburn and instilling in them even just a little bit of mom’s passion for teaching and fostering children.”
From students who passed through USD 325 or Tree Top Preschool in Phillipsburg, to at-risk kids across Kansas, to her own children, Clella built her life around unconditional love and molding young minds. And while the Hahn name reverberates through a lot of halls at Washburn, it is Clella’s footsteps that Brian and Lowell hope to inspire students to follow, and it’s the mark on the world that she made that they wish to honor.
“Making great people out of young children is the best legacy we could possibly imagine,” said Brian.
Like the Hahns, you, too, can say, “I Will for Washburn” with your estate gift and help give students a place to realize their dreams. Please contact Erin Aldridge at 785.670.4483 or PlannedGiving@wualumni.org to learn more.
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