Rodney & Betty Webb Honored for Contributions to UND

Document Type

News Article

Publication Date

2-11-2015

Campus Unit

School of Law

Abstract

Rodney and Betty Webb were honored with a UND Booster Club Fan Salute in Fargo Tuesday.

UND Alumni Association and Foundation spokesman Milo Smith said in an email that since 1981, the two supported UND with several donations, the largest of which being farmland near St. Thomas, N.D., worth $272,000 in 1995.

Rodney Webb, who died in 2009, was a football letterwinner and graduated from the UND Law School in 1957. He was the first graduate from that school to serve as a federal district judge in North Dakota. He also served as the Walsh County State’s Attorney, Grafton Municipal Judge, the state’s Special Assistant Attorney General and was the president of the North Dakota State’s Attorneys’ Association.

Rodney Webb has been honored many times over the years, including receiving the Sioux Award, which is the highest honor given by the UND Alumni Association and Foundation, as well as the Light of Justice Award from the North Dakota Trial Lawyers Association.

Betty Webb, Fargo, was present at the ceremony in Fargo to accept the Fan Salute award. The Webbs were married for more than 50 years.

Gary Euren of Fargo, a Booster Club board member who worked around Rodney Webb professionally for years, had nothing but good things to say about the former judge.

"Rod was a very nice man, a very good person and an excellent attorney and judge when he was on the bench," he said. "He was very efficient, very businesslike."

Euren presented Betty Webb with the Fan Salute award and said she told the audience her husband wouldn't have received the education he did without the football scholarship he got to UND.

The Webbs also started three endowments at UND, Smith said. One endowment funds maintenance at the Gorecki Alumni Center, one pays for an "in-residence" judge at the UND Law School for educational purposes and the other funds scholarships.

One Fan Salute is given out in both Fargo and Grand Forks annually and recipients are chosen by the Booster Club Board, Smith said. The Grand Forks recipient has not been selected yet.

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