HURON — Earlier this month, the Huron community received a boost, when longtime residents Bill and Judy Bartholow donated funds to establish the Bill and Judy Bartholow Family Fund. That donation, according to Huron Community Foundation council chairman Steve Gohn, creates the tenth such fund created in the past few years.

The new family fund joins donations that set up the Doug and Rhonda Kludt Fund; the Anson E. and Sheron M. Chapman Fund; the Entwisle Family Fund; the William K. Kingdon Charitable Fund; the Steve and Karen Marcus Fund, the Craig Matthesen Fund; the Mencke (Jerry and Sandy) Family Fund, the Schiltz (Terry and Nancy) Family Fund and the Wheeler Family Fund.

“All of the funds are separate beneath the umbrella of the Huron Community Foundation,” Gohn said, “and choices for where the funding goes is done by the family, with the exception of the Matthesen and Kingdon funds, which are overseen by the HCF council.”

Ironically, when the Huron Community Foundation began in 2004, it was with gifts from Dr. Michael and Mary Fuchs and Don Bartholow - Bill’s father.

“I had no idea of that until Steve told us,” Bill said of his father’s donation Friday morning, as he and Judy shared information about their donation. “He was doing things like that before he passed,” Judy recalled. “He had - as we have done as well - taken care of the education for his grandchildren and made a donation to the church. Then he turned to his community.”

The Bartholow name is synonymous with Asphalt Paving and Materials Co., in Huron. “Asphalt Paving was my father’s company,” Bill said. “He started it in 1964 - 60 years ago this year - and I started there after I got out of the Army.”

“Bill and I met at SDSU,” Judy said, “and I taught school in Castlewood until we moved here in probably 1970. Bill said, ‘Let’s go and see if we like it,’ in regards to working with his father’s business. We’ve been here ever since and haven’t talked about it. I guess we must have liked it!”

Bill said that he had been thinking of making a donation for some time. “We’re both in our 70s,” he quipped. “Maybe it’s time to make that commitment.”

Bill is the third generation to work in the family business, which can trace a direct line back to the WE Barthlow Construction Company, which his grandfather started in the 1940s. “Dad was second and made it Asphalt Paving, then I joined the business.”

The couples’ son, Mike, is the fourth Bartholow to serve as company president, taking the reins from Bill when he semi-retired. Bill and Judy also have a daughter, Bonnie, who is a teacher in the Huron School District, just as her mother was before.

Mike has three children and Judy said the oldest, Ethan, just graduated high school and is going into construction management, so the foundation is in place for the fifth generation to step into the business.

“Huron has provided us a place to raise a family and to grow our business,” Bill said. “We are certainly very appreciative of Huron, which has been a home for our business and where we have done a lot of work.”

“We saw so many of our friends - people in our age group - who were making that commitment to Huron’s future,” Judy said. “Giving back to the community is something that is important to us.”