Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Winter 2014 | Page 22

by Dawn Kotapish ’92

the Man with a Plan

Dave Teune ’74, director
of gift planning services,
received the Alumni
Association’s 2013
Distinguished Service to
Alma Mater Award during
Homecoming Weekend,
October 4-5.

20     w i n t e r   2 0 1 4

As an aspiring secondary education history teacher during his senior
year at Wheaton College, Dave Teune ’74 received a last-minute
reassignment. Originally scheduled to be a student teacher at Wheaton
Central High School, he was instead put in charge of a class of
seventh-graders at Monroe Middle School.
“I like to say it was seventh grade that sent me straight to law school,”
says Dave, who quickly became disillusioned when he discovered that
most of the 12-year-olds under his tutelage didn’t share his passion
for knowledge.
So Dave decided to change career paths. He took the Law School
Admission Test and went on to study law the following fall. Dave
graduated with a J.D. from Chicago’s John Marshall Law School
in 1977 and earned his LL.M. in taxation from I.I.T. Chicago-Kent
College of Law in 2008.
After practicing law in Chicago and Northbrook, Illinois, for
five years, Dave returned to Wheaton College in 1982 as planned
giving counsel. Though he describes himself and his Wheaton
friends as “a cynical bunch, like many other college students in the
early seventies,” he says. “It was the ethos of Wheaton—the
intellectual, Christian environment—that made it an attractive place
to return to.”
In 1983, he transitioned to the College’s Investment and Trust
Department as associate investment manager. He became investment
manager in 1984 and served as legal counsel from 1992 to 1994. In
1994, Dave returned to the fundraising arena as director of Wheaton’s
Gift Planning Services. In 2000, he also assumed the roles of
director, general counsel, and secretary for the Wheaton College
Trust Company.
As director of Gift Planning Services since 1994, Dave has been
instrumental in expanding Wheaton’s historically robust planned
giving program, serving in both administrative and fundraising
capacities. He has proven to be a highly regarded resource to donors,
administrators, and fundraising staff with a singular gift for creatively
coaching them through complex gift and estate planning strategies.
Law has indeed proven to be a good fit for Dave. Lenore
Callahan, who serves as office coordinator in Gift Planning Services
and has worked with Dave since 1997, says he seems content
when ensconced in his office, surrounded by piles of law books.
Over the years, Dave has appreciated the opportunity to see
Wheaton’s commitment to furthering Christ’s Kingdom lived out
through the lives of students, alumni, parents, and friends.
He feels privileged, for example, to have witnessed Wheaton’s
mission at work within the life of his own daughter, Molly Teune
Denton ’09.
“I could see the growth in my daughter’s faith and intellectual
development,” he says. “I could appreciate the incredible young