The Knox City Council accepted a generous donation from a KHS Hall of Fame inductee when members met Tuesday night.
Mayor Dennis Estok informed council members that Richard Mast, a former student and basketball player who grew up in Knox in the 1940s and 50s, recently approached him with a desire to help support a City project.
He explained, “He wanted to give back to his hometown because he felt like he never would have been able to go to college, he said, if it wasn’t for basketball in Knox, Indiana.”
Estok continued “So we’ve been working for six months and gave him a list of different projects to choose from [that we mentioned that we were going to do in the future] and what he actually picked out was the message board.”
Mast shared that he hopes by providing this new sign, more residents will be informed about local events and will be able to enjoy the many wonderful opportunities that Knox has to offer.
Mayor Estok noted that this message board would resemble the existing one, only it would feature a line that reads ‘donated by Richard Mast.’
Estok mentioned that it would be placed on the opposite end of the City from where the current one is situated and referenced a traffic count that suggests it could be a useful addition in that area.
He told members, “We talked about one eventually on the south end of town because the last count that I saw, which was years ago, there was actually more cars, not work-wise I didn’t say work, but more cars going out that way to the south than to the north.”
He added that it has to be installed on a city-owned piece of land so they’re considering putting it on the Sandy Acres property but the exact placement has not been finalized.
Mayor Estok expressed his gratitude to Mr. Mast on behalf of the entire city.
He noted, “We should be very grateful that we have people from Knox, Indiana that think enough about their hometown, even though he’s been gone, look at how long he’s been gone […] and he still thinks enough about his hometown to donate something like this.”
Estok noted that the money initially had to be donated to the Northern Indiana Community Foundation and then the organization will provide it to City for this purpose. The check made out to NICF totaled $50,337.
Photo Source: Starke County Historical Society
According to a bio provided about Richard “Dick” Mast, he enjoyed the small-town atmosphere and made great lifelong friendships while growing up in Knox.
From the very beginning, one of his great loves was sports, particularly basketball. His abilities earned him a scholarship to Northwestern University, where he was captain of the basketball team and received All-Big-Ten honors.
As Mayor Estok noted, he credits his ability to go to college to that scholarship which was made possible by his involvement with Knox basketball.
He graduated from Northwestern in 1957 with a degree in education and after a brief stint in Chicago working for Texaco and Scott Paper, he relocated to Minneapolis and began a successful career in the wholesale paper business.
In 1966, he purchased Wilcox Paper Company, a small, family-owned company. In an era where most of the paper companies had multi-city/state locations, Mast took this small company and turned it into one of the leading independent wholesale paper companies in the U.S.
In 1987, he purchased Field Paper Company, another small independent company with offices in Omaha, Nebraska and Des Moines, Iowa. During his tenure as owner and president of both companies, he was asked to serve on many advisory boards for various paper manufactures.
In 2005, he sold both companies to long-time employees and they’re still going strong today.
Mast is now enjoying retirement, splitting time between Bonita Springs, Florida and Wayzata, Minnesota – a small suburb outside of Minneapolis. He still enjoys sports, only these days it’s tennis and golf rather than basketball.
Mast was inducted into the inaugural Knox High School Hall of Fame. He said he still keeps in touch with many of his classmates and mentioned that he is especially thankful for the values instilled in him that began so many years ago in Knox that have stuck with him throughout his life.
