A scholarship gift honoring Shirley and Dale Morter ’56 will bring students from southwestern Pennsylvania to Occidental
When Chino High School class valedictorian Dale Morter ’56 visited Occidental for the first time, he had all but chosen Pomona. But a teacher at Chino—an Occidental graduate—urged him to take a look at Oxy. He got a campus tour from Dean of Men Ben Culley, who offered him a scholarship that same day.
“If I went to Pomona, I would have lived at home,” Morter recalls. Instead, he chose Oxy, where he majored in psychology, joined ATO fraternity, and eventually became a “dorm daddy” (’50s speak for resident assistant). “It worked out really well,” he says.
Seventy years after graduating from Oxy, Morter has facilitated a gift that will ensure that applicants from southwestern Pennsylvania will have the same opportunity he did. Thanks to a grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Dale C. Morter ’56 and Shirley Rudisill Morter Annual Scholarship Fund will award a minimum of $20,000 per year to support the educational experience of at least three students from the region.
Shirley Rudisill was born in Eagle Rock, Va., a small town located in the Shenandoah Valley. She met Morter through her brother-in-law when he was in personnel officers school. “I fell in love with Shirley,” Dale recalls. After completing his training, Dale was stationed in Japan, and he and Shirley were married in 1958, navigating a dual civil ceremony between the American consulate and a Japanese ward office—with a giraffe in a trailer holding up traffic on the way back to base.
Upon returning from Japan in 1959, Morter enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to pursue a master’s in psychology. “The Oxy faculty had a great reputation with UNC’s psychology department,” he says. “My Oxy degree was pretty much a guarantee of getting into Chapel Hill to graduate school.”
Dale helped establish and grow a mental health center in North Carolina before moving to Pittsburgh, where he worked as a clinical child psychologist at St. Francis General Hospital and maintained a private practice. Eventually, the Morters returned to the Tar Heel State, and Shirley continued her own distinguished career. She logged 34 years of service to UNC’s Department of Psychiatry over two separate stints, retiring in 2013 as director of administration for UNC’s private patient psychiatric practice.
The inspiration for the scholarship is rooted in Shirley’s generosity. “Shortly after we got married, Shirley tracked down an orphanage,” Dale recalls, “and we had two orphan boys spend the weekends with us during most of our time in Japan.”
Over the years, by his reckoning, Shirley fostered nine children. Among them was Catharine Mellon Cathey, who lived with the Morters in Pittsburgh from age 12 to 17. “The Morters are family—they shepherded me through my adolescence as loving mentors,” Cathey says. “Shirley was my fierce defender, a strong female role model in a family of accomplished men. She instilled in me my love of travel with her enthusiasm for exploring.
“Dale was always available for advice, which he dispensed in his inimitable gentle way. He taught me to drive a stick shift and helped me choose my first car.” He even talked her out of wanting to be a truck driver, “a very brief career aspiration of mine.”
After Shirley’s death in November 2022, Dale read an article in Occidental magazine about a faculty recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship funded by a national philanthropy. Inspiration struck, and he reached out to Cathey with the idea of creating an initiative to honor Shirley’s work with foster children. “My idea was it would be just in memory of her,” Dale says. “Catharine added me to the mix.”
“I was excited about the opportunity, given Occidental’s strong academic reputation,” says Cathey, who serves as president of the Richard King Mellon Foundation (RKMF). “I wanted to include Dale as an honoree. He is a proud Occidental alum.”
Foundation director Sam Reiman worked with Occidental’s Office of Institutional Advancement to develop a grant that aligned with RKMF’s mission to advance prosperity in southwestern Pennsylvania “and would fulfill Dale’s wish to let others learn about the work Shirley did,” Cathey says. The first Morter Scholars are expected to enroll at Occidental this fall.
Dale continues to live near Jordan Lake in Chapel Hill. His boating days are behind him, but he still enjoys gardening, watching TV, and “fixing things around the house.” Younger son Chris is an attorney in Atlanta. Older son Greg, a physician, and wife Connie recently moved nearby. Grandson Benjamin and great-grandson Dexter live in Carrollton, Va.
“When my family and I attended Shirley’s memorial, I was surprised to learn that Shirley and Dale had fostered many more young adults in North Carolina,” Cathey says. “Chris laughingly asked if I had thought I was the only one. I had. They made me feel that special. That was their magic.”
Above: Dale and Shirley Morter on January 1, 2000. Photo courtesy Dale Morter '56.
