The University of California, Davis, today announced that philanthropists Lynda and Stewart Resnick, co-owners of The Wonderful Company, have pledged the largest gift ever to the university by individual donors. The $50 million pledge will support the school’s longstanding commitment to address today’s most pressing challenges in agriculture and environmental sustainability. 

A UC Davis alumnus is gifting $4.5 million to support the Department of Animal Science’s Horse Barn and related programming.

Richard “Dick” E. Jorgensen, who graduated from UC Davis in 1960, spent his senior year as a student herdsman living at the barn, feeding horses at night, keeping an eye on mares ready to foal and occasionally riding the black stallion Araza.

“You got to live in the barn,” he said. “That was the best prize of all.”