SLIPPERY ROCK — Jeanne Powell Furrie, a 1945 Slippery Rock University physical education graduate and longtime university benefactor, has bequeathed the largest legacy gift in SRU’s history — $735,000 so far — as part of her estate.

The gift total is expected to increase once final paperwork is completed, according to a Friday news release from SRU.

The funds have been earmarked for the Jeanne P. Furrie Scholarship fund at SRU with the first student scholarships to be presented at next year’s SRU Alumni Association Spring Recognition and Awards Banquet.

Before Furrie’s gift, SRU’s largest legacy gift totaled $485,000.

Furrie of Monroeville, Allegheny County, died April 14, 2013, at age 89.

“Slippery Rock lost a friend and champion when Jeanne Powell Furrie passed away,” said SRU President Cheryl Norton.

“While I did not have the opportunity to meet Jeanne, I know she was an accomplished alumna who taught physical education for 22 years in the Penn Hills School District and, early in her career, graciously convinced the superintendent to approve varsity teams for women.”

Furrie was a lifelong member of the SRU Alumni Association and served on its board of directors. In 2001, she was named a member of the SRU Athletic Hall of Fame for field hockey, a club sport in her days at SRU.

She was a member of the Ruby Lifetime Giving Club at SRU and had given generously to the Russell Wright Alumni House expansion project.

In 2007, Furrie received the alumni association’s Past Presidents’ Service Award, given annually by the association board to recognize an alumnus who makes the greatest overall contribution to the association.

Furrie was a member of the Delta Kappa Gamma Women’s Guild.

She created the scholarship that bears her name in 1999.

Her husband, Henry Furrie, was an educator at Gateway High School where he was its first athletic director and health and swimming teacher. He died in 1998.

The Henry J. Furrie Scholarship Fund honors him and provides scholarships to Gateway High School students.