Bequest to Increase Skoufis Scholarship Fund
Left to right: University of Maine Foundation President/CEO Jeffery Mills, UMaine President Susan Hunter,
George Predaris, John Rozos
University of Maine President Susan Hunter and University of Maine Foundation President/CEO Jeffery Mills recently accepted a check for $300,000 from the Helen Skoufis estate. Helen Skoufis and her husband Peter, a member of the UMaine Class of 1941, were longtime supporters of the University. Peter and Helen’s nephews George Predaris of Rye, NH, and John Rozos of Poland Spring, ME presented the check.
In 1996, the Skoufises established the Helen M. and Peter J. Skoufis Scholarship at the University of Maine Foundation. Distributions from the fund provide scholarship assistance for undergraduate students who are graduates of Bangor High School and John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor.
“Bequests provide much-needed private support to the University of Maine while allowing donors to continue their philanthropic work and establish their legacies in perpetuity,” Jeff Mills said, “we are very grateful to Helen and Peter for this generous gift.”
Although his work in the U.S.Foreign Sevice took him around the globe interacting with world leaders, Peter Skoufis never forgot his roots in his hometown, Bangor, Maine, or his alma mater, the University of Maine, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history.
Peter was born in 1919 to John and Katina Skoufis in Greece, they immigrated to Bangor where Peter was raised. After graduating from the University of Maine, Peter attended George Washington University Law School, and left to join the war before receiving his degree. He served in the Army Air Corps in the Pacific during World War II.
After the war, he worked at the Veterans Administration in Washington and then as veterans affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, where several thousand American veterans were studying under the G.I. Bill. He then served as veterans’ affairs attaché in Rome. After joining the Foreign Service, he served in Pretoria, South Africa, the Hague, Paris and London. During tours of duty in Washington, his assignments included assistant executive director of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs, executive officer to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and deputy inspector general of the Foreign Service.
He became a Foreign Service inspector and for three years traveled to Asia and Europe. He received the State Department Superior Honor Award in 1971. He was a former board member of DACOR (Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired). In 1971, he joined the United Nations. He served for seven years as assistant director general of the Food and Agricultural Organization in Rome. He retired from the U.N. in 1984, and settled in Washington, D.C.
Helen was born in Nanty Glo, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Johanna Krzeczkowska and family were of Polish and Austrian Empire descent. After five years with the Veterans Administration in Washington, she was assigned in early 1947 to the newly opened VA office at the American Embassy in Paris. Following her marriage to Peter in Paris in 1949, she accompanied him to Foreign Service posts around the world. This was followed by a seven-year assignment in Rome where her husband served as Assistant Director General of FAO of the United Nations.
At all posts abroad she did volunteer work for local charities. Following her husband’s retirement, she was an active member of the Womens’ Committee of the National Symphony Orchestra, The Welcome to Washington International Club and the Association of American Foreign Service Wives.
Peter passed away in 2005 and Helen in 2014, and as part of their estate planning they provided these additional resources to support their scholarship.
