Nine million dollars.

That’s a lot of money. It’s more money than most people will see in their entire lives.

In fact, it’s more money than most people dream of seeing.

Well, certain members of the Iowa State community can stop dreaming because yesterday their wish for millions came true.

On Wednesday afternoon, in front of a large crowd of journalistically-minded folks, President Martin Jischke announced that two former ISU alums were donating $9 million to the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication.

No, they’re not relatives of Bill Gates. They aren’t recent winners of the lottery. And what’s more amazing, they didn’t want anything in return.

The two benefactors are Robert and Diane Greenlee, two very cool and down-to-earth people who think education is a pretty important part of life.

This large sum of money means a lot to the journalism department.

A lot of changes will now take place, probably the biggest is that the journalism department will become an actual school. When approved by the Board of Regents, our department will officially be known as the Robert and Diane Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication.

Due to the Greenlee’s generosity, ISU journalism will join the prestigious ranks of the 12 mighty journalism schools already established in this country.

That’s right, out of 108 accredited journalism programs, only 8 have the high quality of teaching, technology and research that enable them to be actual schools.

And now we will join them, proving ISU is not just about agriculture and engineering.

We owe a lot to the Greenlees, who graduated from ISU in the mid-’60s.

While attending our university, both Diane and Robert were involved in the campus radio station, where they met. They went on to buy a defunct Denver radio station and transformed it into a number one station.

What really makes this gift impressive is that Mr. Greenlee, the mayor of Boulder, Colo., still wanted to give us the money, even though he’s spent months running from overzealous and intrusive media people who wanted the dirt on the infamous Jon-Benet Ramsey murder case.

Now that’s the sign of a true saint.

We thank the Greenlees for their wonderful donation and for making our futures so much brighter.