Couple’s Love for BYU Is On Display

December 2024

David and Debra Gehris have miraculous and unlikely BYU stories, beginning with their religious upbringing.

David was raised in an active Presbyterian family. “We had our own pew in the local church with our family name on it,” he says. David first heard of “Mormons” when his fourth-grade teacher invited missionaries to show Meet the Mormons (1973) in class. His curiosity was piqued, but it wasn’t until David was 23 years old that he was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He went on to serve a mission in Belgium.

Debra attended a different Presbyterian church regularly with her family. Sometimes she would go to Primary with the children of some friends who were members of the Church of Jesus Christ. “They didn’t teach me directly, but by example,” she says. In time, Debra too was baptized.

Even though they both lived in the small town of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, they never met growing up. Both eventually made their way to BYU, though they didn’t meet there.
After returning to Pennsylvania, the two met planting flowers at a Church activity for single adults.
Their love blossomed and they were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple.

As newlyweds, they chose to live in Utah, where David worked as an insurance claims manager and Debra taught elementary school. They worked hard and lived frugally and decided to make a planned gift to BYU. David and Debra worked with the Philanthropies Department to set it up. Having made that gift to BYU, they became members of the Jesse and Amanda Knight Society.

Debra’s experience earning a master’s degree in education at BYU informed their giving plan. She remembers a young man whose wife dropped out of school because they couldn’t afford to both study at once, so Debra and David’s planned gift includes scholarships with a bonus. “We made sure that our scholarships will cover tuition and books and other materials,” she says.

Later Debra inherited some heirlooms including a painting of her family’s ancestral estate in Leurenkill, New York. The couple hired a conservator to restore the painting, and they hung it in the family living room. Looking to the future, David approached the BYU Museum of Art about gifting the painting.

BYU accepted the Hudson River style painting as a future gift. Recently the Gehrises loaned the painting to the museum, and it is now on display in the museum’s exhibition Crossing the Divide: American Art from the Permanent Collection.

“We love BYU and are happy to be able to help students,” says Debra. David agrees, “We’re just stewards of the blessings we receive, and we’re excited to pay them forward.”