Gary Devers holds an unassuming job: he works as a supply clerk at the Physical Plant. But Devers plans to leave a large but undisclosed amount of money to Mississippi State University, where he has worked for 22 years, upon his death.
Devers, 56, whose brown eyes peer out from under bushy gray eyebrows, spends his days checking in supplies, entering daily tickets and dispersing the supplies.
“There’s not many people who come into money like him who maintain a lifestyle working an 8-to-5 job, but that’s how much he loves MSU,” Devers’ friend Alan Palmer said.
In his will, Devers, who inherited his fortune from a great uncle, allocated his money to improve MSU’s infrastructure: water, power and sewage.
“Over the years, I’ve seen buildings go up, streets go up, parking lots go up, but there’s one thing at this university they’ve never cared about,” he said. That thing is infrastructure.
He won’t say exactly how much the university will receive upon his death. “Let’s say that it’s a large sum,” he said.
MSU vice president for external affairs Dennis Prescott said that the university respects the privacy of donors but that the institution has an ongoing conversation with Devers.
Devers started thinking about donating his money to the university four years ago, and three years ago, he put it into his will, he said. He is setting up a committee of five people to control the money ahead of time because he wants to get the committee started on discussing projects the university will undertake with the money, he said.
One project Devers said is important is the completion of the steam loop under the Drill Field, which provides heating and a form of cooling. Some parts of it were built around 1900, he said, and it doesn’t complete the loop around the area, which could cause problems if one part of it fails to work.
Devers, who converted to Catholicism last year, came forward about his donation because he felt it was time. He’s dying of non-classic adult Sandhoff, the gentile version of Tay-Sachs disease, which is normally limited to descendants of a certain group of Jews.
Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff diseases normally affect children, usually causing death by the age of 3. Sandhoff disease causes the progressive deterioration of nerves in the brain and spinal cord.
Devers’ family acquired the genetic disease in the late 1740s, he said, and even with his family history, he had a one in 600,000 chance of becoming ill. The disease hit his generation especially hard; he has had two cousins die of the disease.
Devers was born in Sylacauga, Ala., about 50 miles east of Birmingham, on April 15, 1949.
“Lots of people cringe when I tell them what my birthday is,” he said.
Not only is it tax day, he pointed out, but it’s also the day Abraham Lincoln died and the day the H.M.S. Titanic sunk. But it’s a birthday he shares with his grandfather.
Devers values history, Palmer said. “Gary has, for many, many years, worked to preserve history. He’s taken part in many different projects where the goal was to preserve some historic monument or house or even a Civil War battlefield,” he said.
Devers and Palmer met at a Palmer’s first Civil War re-enactment 12 1/2 years ago.
Devers has participated in both Civil War and Mexican War re-enactments. He takes the part of both Union and Confederate artillerymen, as well as Confederate marines, a position he said a lot of people don’t know existed.
This year, he has only participated in five re-enactments, but other years, he attended an event almost every weekend. “I’ll always remember 1996-42 events,” he said.
He remembers a 1998 event marking the 135th anniversary of Gettysburg.
“Friday, first contact, on that field you had 10,000 re-enacters there,” he said.
Usually a battle will last one hour, he said, but that day, after taking a hit, he was down for four hours while soldiers continued to pour onto the battlefield.
The event continued throughout the weekend.
“The emotional high that you got Sunday at Pickett’s Field, when you come out and see Stonewall, it’s almost like you were back in 1863. If you take the wall, the war’s ended,” he said.
Of course, they didn’t take the wall, he added.
He remembered the feeling he got when he and others placed a small flag where the 11th Mississippi Infantry had been.
“I could’ve sworn I saw bodies there,” he said. “We went over there the next day, and there was nothing there to indicate bodies were there.”
Devers said he also collects guns and shoots rifles. He enjoys classical music and early jazz. Lately, through the influence of a friend, early rock has grown on him.
He likes Louis Armstrong and the early Beatles, he said, but his favorite musician is Ludwig van Beethoven because of the challenges the composer faced.
Palmer described Devers as a genuine and honorable person. “I’ve never heard anyone say an unkind thing about Gary,” he said.