The paper man who left a trust to Mount Union's schools

Oliver L. Etnier was born in Mount Union in 1868 and died in 1950, and he is buried in Mount Union Cemetery. The scholarships his trust pays for do not carry his name. The high school's guidance guide says he created the John S. Morrison Scholarships in honor of his uncle, John S. Morrison.

Both names turn up in the paper trade. An 1883 county history says the Tyrone Paper-Mill of Morrison, Bare & Cass ran under the management of J. S. Morrison. In September 1890 the Paper Trade Journal reported that John S. Morrison, Oliver L. Etnier and three other men of Tyrone were about to incorporate as the Morrison & Cass Paper Company. An Associated Press story in December 1989 said Etnier worked at that company before moving to Wilmington, Delaware, where he became a paper distributor. A 1911 Chicago directory also lists an Oliver L. Etnier as president of the Dearborn Paper Co., and we have not confirmed that it is the same man.

The same story said Etnier wrote the conditions for the trust in 1930. His son died childless in 1961, and his last surviving child died in June 1988, at 93, without an heir. That made the Mount Union Area School District the beneficiary of a trust the story put at $9.5 million, with Wilmington Trust Co. as trustee. "It was a total surprise to us," said the president of the school board.

The plan, as the superintendent described it that December, was 18 full scholarships the next year, at least four full scholarships every year after that, and about $100,000 a year for the district. The story said the scholarships would go only to students planning to major in engineering, computer science or the physical sciences at one of six universities: Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Stevens Institute of Technology or Yale.

The high school's 2020 to 2021 guide calls it a "full academic scholarship" and says Mount Union Area High School seniors get first choice, ahead of graduates of other public high schools in Huntingdon County and surrounding counties. The district's proposed budget for 2023 to 2024 says the trust document gives the district "20% of the proceeds from the trust management," to be used "in its sole discretion for the benefit of the moral, physical, and intellectual development of the pupils."

The trust's federal return for the year that ended April 30, 2025, is dated March 10, 2026. It lists $15,855,766 in net assets on its books at the end of the year and puts the fair market value of all its assets at $20,114,944. It reports $931,666 in charitable disbursements. Of $842,872 in grants paid, $277,205 went to the Mount Union Area School District as general support, and nine scholarship grants came to $565,667. The return's restriction on awards names the Mount Union Area School District and surrounding areas, and five of the six universities the 1989 story named. Cornell is the one left off. The return calls the application "The John S Morrison Scholarships Form."

Checked 2026-11-01 · Primary sources and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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