Heartland Community College is celebrating one of the largest single financial gifts in the college’s history which will be used to establish a nursing scholarship and to honor care provided by Heartland graduates.
The planned gift of $1.2 million comes from the estate of Bud and Fran Davis.
Melvin, known as Bud, Davis died in 2014 and held leadership roles at Farnsworth Group. His wife Frances, or Fran, died in 2025. The McLean County native and Illinois State University graduate taught at Trinity Lutheran School in Bloomington and the Tri-Valley and LeRoy school districts.
Pastor Jim Davis, one of their sons, was accompanied by his wife Cynthia at their Thursday visit to Heartland. He said the gift was a secret the family had held after his parents quietly amended their will decades earlier.
“And then it was in the mid-90s … I don’t remember the exact day, but this [nursing] program had been in effect for about five years, and their primary care physician got a new nurse,” Davis said.
Upon Bud and Fran reflecting on the nurse’s performance, they discovered he was a Heartland graduate, and they were highly impressed by him. The next year, Fran had surgery.
“She’s in the hospital and she meets this lady who’s working as a CNA, and found out that … she’s a single mom, her husband had left her,” said Davis. “She had two small children. She’s working full time in the hospital and taking class [at HCC], and what a struggle it was for her to make ends meet…”
Davis said his parents remembered their own paths in life with Bud working his own way through college and Fran being a child of the Great Depression.
“They started talking and said, ‘You know what? We really need to support this program and help people,’” he said.
Until their respective passings, both of his parents would be delighted to find out whenever their care came from a Heartland student.
So, before his father’s death, Bud directed his son as power of attorney and executor of the estate to make sure the money was given to Heartland at the appropriate time.
“I’m glad to see that it did. But my mom and dad were just so awesome. I was very fortunate to grow up in a family that we consider a normal family with good parents,” he said.
At the end of his speech, Davis said he met Heartland graduates himself during the care of his parents and at other times as well.
“And so, I have to thank you. I have to thank you as faculty,” said Davis. “I have to thank you as students. I have to thank you for the care that you gave to my parents, and also as a part-time chaplain in the hospital.”
A special gift
HCC President Keith Cornille spoke in the press conference about how the married couple were impacted by Heartland graduates. He said the impact of the gift made it more special than the value itself.
“Bud and Fran were impressed by our students, our students that cared for them when they needed it most, and so that gift came as a result of our students, and the great work that they do and they inspired these individuals to think about the college differently,” he said.
Another element of the uniqueness of the gift, Cornille said, came from the fact that it did not come to the college in the traditional sense.
“These aren’t individuals that we sat with in a normal way that we may with regard to gift,” he said. “These were our students that, through their actions, they were the ones that led to this gift, and it was because of the quality reaching that they received from our outstanding facility in our health science programs that they had that technology that they needed…”
Cornille described a quality of character that came from the Heartland graduates who cared for Bud and Fran. One that crosses into the greater community in which they choose to practice care.
“They create that community vibrancy, because if you think about it, our students stay here in our community when they graduate,” said Cornille. “And whether they work in a clinic, they work in a hospital, they work as EMTs or paramedics, or they’re doing radiography technology or physical therapy, they’re right here in our community.”
Cornille said the gift will establish the Bud and Fran Davis Endowed Nursing Scholarship, meaning it will pay for students to go through the nursing program for many years. It will also help support the health science program to grow at Heartland.
Lastly, he said it also leaves a lasting legacy on the part of Bud and Fran.
“It’s a legacy that really is at the center of something that we feel is extremely important here at the college, and that is to create a community of vibrancy,” he said. “They knew that in their own special way, even though we never talked about it…”
In 2026, Heartland nursing graduates received a 96% pass rate on the NCLEX licensure exam and nursing assistant completions reached 268, the most in the program’s history.
