Berniece and Bill Grewcock Have Helped Share American Heritage & Values

Berniece Grewcock will celebrate her 100^th birthday on December 1, 2025. Bellevue University is one of countless grateful beneficiaries of her work, generosity and friendship, who will celebrate with her.

One hundred years is a milestone reached by relatively few. According to Pew Research, today about one in every 3,300 Americans reaches 100 years old, about .03% of the population.

Born Dec. 1, 1925, about 60 years after the Civil War ended (1865) and 60 years before Mikhail Gorbachev became the last leader of the former Soviet Union (1985), Berniece Grewcock's century has encompassed dynamic growth and change. In fact, nearly 40% of America's history has occurred during her lifetime.

To put her life in context, consider that Berniece was 3 years old when the Great Depression began. Just days after her 16^th birthday, the Japanese attacked the U.S. naval fleet at Pearl Harbor. And Berniece was in her mid-60s when the World Wide Web was invented by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989.

The Grewcock Marriage Was a Partnership

During their 70-year marriage and partnership, Berniece and her late husband, Bill, quietly built a legacy of active engagement and support as conservators of elephants, butterflies, community, and the American Dream. Today, their legacy continues through the work of the Bill and Berniece Grewcock Foundation, which they established.

In 1965, Bill's job at Kiewit Corporation brought the couple and their two young sons to Omaha, where they put down roots and got involved in a range of impactful causes and projects benefiting the community, state, and country. Bill, who joined Kiewit in 1949 as a college-intern labor foreman on a runway project at the Omaha airport, was hired on full-time after graduating from the University of Nebraska. During a 57-year Kiewit career, he led a variety of company infrastructure and mining projects throughout the country before retiring in 2007 as Vice-Chairman.

Over the decades, the Grewcocks became well-known and recognized for their advocacy and philanthropy, supporting native and international wildlife conservation, diversity, habitat, health and genetics. If you have visited Omaha's world-renowned Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, you probably have seen the Grewcock name on multiple zoo exhibits, plant and wildlife conservation and research facilities, including the Berniece Grewcock Butterfly and Insect Pavilion. In a November 2023 zoo press release announcing a new $45 million animal hospital to be completed in fall 2025, Berniece credited her farm-girl upbringing for instilling the importance of caring for animals.

Love of country, traditional values, and the American Dream are other key aspects of the Grewcocks' legacy. As parents, engaged citizens, business and civic leaders and champions of America's founding principles and sustaining values, they have staunchly supported efforts to keep the dream alive and attainable for future generations through education, civic service and engagement.

Love of country, traditional values, and the American Dream are other key aspects of the Grewcocks' legacy. As parents, engaged citizens, business and civic leaders and champions of America's founding principles and sustaining values, they have staunchly supported efforts to keep the dream alive and attainable for future generations through education, civic service and engagement.

The Kirkpatrick Signature Series

The Grewcocks' association with Bellevue University began shortly after the University introduced its nine-credit undergraduate Kirkpatrick Signature Series course requirement in fall 1998 as an institutional commitment to support an informed and engaged citizenry.

"We're so thankful for the Grewcocks' phenomenal support of the Signature Series," said Dr. Mary Hawkins, Bellevue University President. "We've educated, with that curriculum, close to 50,000 students and counting. Students were a little afraid of it at first, but it has become one of the classes they most appreciate. We have almost 30 years of offering the Signature Series."

Collectively, the three upper-level Signature Series courses examine America's history, vision and values, foundational documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, and emphasize the importance of citizen engagement. Course content includes various institutions and traditions of Western Civilization, civil discourse and concepts such as basic liberties, limited government, democracy, entrepreneurship and free-enterprise.

LA 400 American Vision and Values – Focuses on the political and philosophical traditions of the American republic, especially as embedded in the ideals, values, traditions, founding documents, and institutions of the United States, and considers how these traditions relate to individual citizenship and global society.

LA 410 Tradition and Change -- Examines civic engagement in relation to individual freedoms and responsibilities. It fosters engaged citizenswho are empowered to effect positive change.

LA 420 Freedom and Responsibility – Highlights creative tensions between tradition and change as the country undergoes social, cultural, and political change. It considers how change can renew the vitality of a republic.

To date, more than 46,000 bachelor's-degree graduates from throughout the U.S. and 58 other countries worldwide have completed the Signature Series courses and a volunteer service requirement that has netted more than 415,000 service hours for a broad range of non-profit projects and causes in America and overseas.

The Grewcock Vision and Values Endowment Fund

In 1999, the Grewcock family established the Bill & Berniece Grewcock Chair of American Vision and Values at Bellevue University, a major endowment fund to support and increase awareness of the shared American heritage beyond the campus to a wider audience through civic education and engagement.

The University's annual fall Signature event speaker series, which launched in 2009, is a prime example of how the Grewcocks and other generous supporters have helped expand the impact of the fund. The Grewcocks attended many of the Signature event programs, which have become a highlight of the University's community engagement calendar and have attracted thousands of business and civic leaders over the years. The event also spotlights Bellevue University's efforts to raise need-based scholarship support for under-resourced students.

To date, Signature Event speakers have included:

2009 - William Bennett, Former Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan

2010 – George Will, Political Columnist

2011 - Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Columnist

2012 - Peggy Noonan, Presidential Speechwriter, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Columnist

2013 – John P. Mackey, American Businessman, Entrepreneur, Author

2014 – David Brooks, Political Commentator and Author

2015 – Mitch Daniels, Purdue University President, Former Governor of Indiana

2016 – Newt Gingrich, Former U.S. Congressional Speaker of the House

2017 – Doris Kearns Goodwin, Presidential Historian and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author

2018 – Ron Chernow, Best-Selling Biographer, Author of Alexander Hamilton

2019 – Nikki Haley, Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Former Governor of South Carolina

2020 – Event cancelled due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

2021 – Gary Sinise, Humanitarian, Academy Award-Nominated Actor

2022 - Gen. James N. Mattis (USMC, Ret.), Former Secretary of Defense

2023 – Ian Bremmer, Political Scientist and Expert on Global Politics and Risk Management

2024 – Karl Rove, Political Strategist, Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush

2025 – Bret Baier, FOX News Anchor and Executive Editor of Special Report With Bret Baier (this year’s scheduled speaker)

Another example of a high-impact initiative supported by the American Vision and Values program is Self-Government Works (SGW). Self-Government Works is a learning simulation program for middle- and high school students that incorporates primary source documents to help students explore and experience America’s system of self-governance in a historical context. Bill Norton, public speaker and author on liberty and the U.S. Constitution, developed the SGW curriculum and has spearheaded multiple University initiatives promoting America’s unique heritage and pedigree online, in public presentations and classroom settings for more than a decade.

Wishing Berniece Grewcock a Happy 100^th Birthday, Norton credited Bellevue University and donors such as the Grewcocks for inspiring and driving the expansion of SGW from a single high school classroom to the self-contained simulation program that teachers in multiple states are learning to use and implementing in their classrooms. “Berniece has done so much to support great things in her community! It’s much more than a lifetime. It’s a lifetime of success, blessings, and helping others.

“Bellevue University has always been known as a civically-minded institution, especially because of their Signature Series courses,” Norton said. “They asked me for something that would appeal to middle school and high school students. Social studies can seem boring and unrelate-able. By learning the concepts and principles taught in SGW, they can be better citizens now, well before they’re voting age.

According to Norton, SGW began as an experimental effort to help one high school social studies teacher engage her students in exploring why America broke from English colonial rule and what the new nation’s founders were trying to accomplish.

“The timing couldn’t be better, according to Norton. “I believe our country is becoming more polarized, not necessarily because we’re thinking differently but because we’re not grounded in the country’s principles and how to get along with each other and have constructive dialogue that unifies rather than divides us.”

Thousands of private, public and home-schooled students and hundreds of teachers have been exposed to the program content, including foundational documents such as the Magna Carta as well as the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and the U.S. Constitution.

“Self-Government Works has been a tremendous initiative, for a couple of reasons,” Dr. Hawkins said, “It gets secondary students to actively engage in how government is formed and how a nation is formed. That is hard to do! The combination of donor support and Bill Norton’s creativity and tenacity has made that real for so many high school students.”

“We are also expanding the offering and using some of those simulation ideas in other classrooms in other neighboring states outside of Nebraska, Minnesota, Texas, and Arizona, as well,” Hawkins said. “Again, thank you, Berniece, for your support.” For Norton, who recently earned his master’s degree at Bellevue, SGW is a passion and a family affair.

His wife, Sarah, calls the program “the culmination of what he (Bill) has been teaching and learning about for decades. “What’s unique about it is that it is a simulation rather than role-playing,” she said. “And it’s very interactive and works for classroom and homeschool students and teachers.” She added that the program is flexible, as it can be used by as few as nine students or in much larger classes.

 “We couldn’t do it (SGW) without people like Berniece,” Sarah said, “People who really want to see liberty taught in the schools. Teachers are amazed when they hear that the program is available at no cost. I tell them, ‘This is for you from Bellevue University and all their donors.’”

Norton’s daughter, Laine Nesbitt, completed SGW in high school and currently assists with program development and teacher training in addition to her day job as an intern school psychologist. She credits the program with helping clarify her own views on self-government.

“Part of the curriculum is learning how to govern yourself and what principles you believe in and want to stand for. School is really hard for a lot of students, so having a simulation format that is intuitive and interactive and enables them to explore the curriculum before they grow up and go out into the world is really helpful.”

“I think Berniece’s contribution is so important because SGW teaches principles of liberty that everyone should be familiar with and involved in, and the simulation gives students a tangible experience to explore those things on their own,” Nesbitt said.