Before artist and philanthropist Mary Koch died in 1990, she asked her daughter-in-law, Liz, to watch after some things that were dear to her once she was gone.
One of them was the Wichita Center for the Arts.
“She was so passionate about it,” said Liz Koch, an honorary trustee for the Center.
She and her husband, Charles, and their family’s foundations are now fulfilling Mary Koch’s wish in a significant way: They’re giving $10.5 million in land and money for a new home for the Center, which started in 1920 as the Wichita Art Association.
