Borden Beck Luncheon
Saturday, January 3 @ 12- 2:00pm
Must RSVP by December 31 @ 11:59 P.M.
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All Harvard alumn
i, current students, families, and friends are warmly invited. We especially welcome newly admitted students of the Class of 2030, along with their families and guests.
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The Harvard Club of Oregon and Southwest Washington is delighted to host this luncheon at the Borden Beck family estate, and the Club will gladly cover the full cost of all attendees.
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This is a relaxed opportunity for local students to reconnect and for alumni to hear the latest from Cambridge through students' eyes. Full details (including the exact location) will be emailed after you RSVP. Please RSVP by December 31 @ 11:59 P.M.
How the scholarship works
• Eligibility: Incoming Harvard College first-year student from Oregon
• Award: Tuition assistance (amount varies based on fund performance/availability)
• Selection: Coordinated with Harvard admissions/financial aid processes and the Club’s scholarship committee
Support the scholarship
The Borden F. Beck, Jr. Scholarship Fund was established in 1990 with the note: “The gifts of family, friends and classmates, to establish a scholarship fund in memory of Borden F. Beck, Jr., Class of 1945 through the Harvard Club of Oregon.”
This scholarship is part of a broader program of Harvard Club scholarships, each serving its respective region. Club Scholarships reaffirm the vital connection between Harvard Clubs and admitted students from their home regions. They celebrate the vibrancy and remarkable talent of the region—and the deeply important work Clubs do both (1) during the admissions process and (2) in welcoming and nurturing communities of Harvard’s current and future alumni.
How to give
Individuals may direct contributions to this fund by referencing the fund name and number: Harvard Club of Oregon — Borden F. Beck, Jr. Scholarship Fund (370-532683RE0001).
- Online: Include the fund name and number in the designation field of the online giving form.
- Check: Note the fund name and number in the memo line.
The online giving form, along with instructions for mailing checks and making gifts via wire transfer or gifts of securities, is available here: https://alumni.harvard.edu/giving.
Background Information
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Borden F. Beck Scholarship
The Borden F. Beck Scholarship provides tuition assistance to an incoming Harvard College student from Oregon. It honors Borden Frazier Beck, Jr., an Oregon-raised Harvard and Harvard Law alumnus who dedicated years to helping young Oregonians imagine themselves at Harvard.
About Borden F. Beck
Borden Frazier Beck, Jr. was born in Redmond, Oregon and earned an A.B. (magna cum laude, 1947), followed by an LL.B. (1950) and LL.M. (1951). After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he returned to Oregon, practiced law in Portland, and became a senior partner in his firm.
Borden was also a sustained civic and conservation leader—serving, among other roles, as chair of the Harvard Club of Oregon Schools & Scholarship Committee (1951–69) and as a commissioner of the Port of Portland. He was active in conservation organizations and served as legal advisor to Friends of the Columbia Gorge.
Above all, Borden loved Oregon’s outdoors. In his 10th Anniversary Reunion Report, showing his poetic bent, he wrote of his home state: Here are snow-capped peaks, blue ocean, canyoned streams, and spacious desert. Here there is room for the soul of a man seeking achievement within the reach of his ambition. Each man is counted and although relative objective achievement may be small, the etchings on Oregon tombstones disappear no sooner than elsewhere.
Borden died in 1989. Two lasting memorials include the Borden F. Beck Scholarship Fund for Harvard freshmen from Oregon and Borden Beck Park (created in 1994: seventy-one acres on the Deschutes River in Central Oregon).
For more color on Borden’s life in his own words, we’ve posted his Harvard reunion entries here.
About Loren Wyss
The scholarship was established in 1990 through a bequest from Loren Wyss (A.B. 1955, MBA 1960), a Portland native and Harvard alumnus who credited Harvard with widening his horizons and wanted Oregon students to have the same opportunity. Loren grew up in Northeast Portland, attended Grant High School, worked in his family’s meat-packing business, and served three years in the U.S. Army during college. He later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and returned to Portland, where he built a career in finance—founding and advising investment firms and helping establish what became Oregon’s first indexed mutual-fund offerings. In addition to his professional work, he held leadership roles across Oregon civic life (including higher education and regional transportation) and later expanded his philanthropy through the Wyss Foundation to support arts, social, animal, and environmental causes.
Where:
Beck Family Estate in Lake Oswego
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Look Who's Coming:
Harvard Interview Committee
Harvard University Extension School
Reboot Partners LLC
Harvard Club of Oregon & SW Washington