• Skip to Content
  • Skip to Main Navigation
  • Skip to Search

Indiana University Indiana University IU

Open Search
  • About
    • History
    • Stories
  • Awards
    • University
      • Honorary Degrees
      • University Medal
      • Bicentennial Medal
    • Presidential
      • President’s Medal
      • Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion
      • Distinguished Service Medal
    • Research & Creative Activity
      • Nobel Prize
      • National Academies
      • International Academies
      • MacArthur Fellowship
      • Pulitzer Prize
      • Guggenheim Fellowship
      • Fulbright Award
      • Andrew Carnegie Fellowship
      • Distinguished Professors
      • Titled Professors
      • Wylie Innovation Catalyst Medal
    • Artistic & Performance
      • Emmy
      • Grammy
      • Oscar
      • Tony
    • Teaching
      • Frederic Bachman Lieber Award
      • Herman Frederic Lieber Award
      • President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching
      • Sylvia E. Bowman Award
      • Thomas Ehrlich Service Learning Award
      • President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Technology
      • Part-Time Teaching Award
      • Lieber Memorial Teaching Associate Award
    • Service
      • Chancellor and Provost Medallion
      • Distinguished International Service Award
      • John W. Ryan Award for Distinguished Contributions to International Programs and Studies
      • E. Ross Bartley Award
      • W. George Pinnell Award for Outstanding Service
    • Student
      • Rhodes Scholarship
      • Marshall Scholarship
      • Mitchell Scholarship
      • Churchill Scholarship
      • Gates Cambridge Scholarship
      • Fulbright Award
      • Goldwater Scholarship
      • Truman Scholarship
      • Boren Scholarship and Fellowship
      • Beinecke Scholarship
      • Udall Scholarship
      • Wells Senior Recognition Award
      • Stahr Distinguished Senior Award
      • Kate Hevner Mueller Outstanding Senior Award
    • Athletic
      • Olympians
      • IU Bloomington Athletics Hall of Fame
      • IUPUI Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame
      • Z.G. Clevenger Award
      • Leanne Grotke Award
      • Bill Orwig Award
    • Alumni
      • University Alumni Awards
      • Campus Alumni Awards
      • School Alumni Awards
    • Philanthropy
      • Partners in Philanthropy Award
      • Presidents Circle Laurel Pin
      • IUPUI Spirit of Philanthropy Award
      • IU Foundation President’s Medallion
  • Nominations
  • Events
  • Search Awards
  • Contact Us

University Honors & Awards

  • Home
  • About
    • History
    • Stories
  • Awards
    • University
    • Presidential
    • Research & Creative Activity
    • Artistic & Performance
    • Teaching
    • Service
    • Student
    • Athletic
    • Alumni
    • Philanthropy
  • Nominations
  • Events
  • Search
  • Search Awards
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • Awards

Jesse H. Cox

* Deceased

Jesse H. Cox

Awards

Chancellor and Provost Medallion (2019)
IUPUI Chancellor's Medallion
Indianapolis, Indiana
IUPUI Spirit of Philanthropy Award (2009)
Distinguished Alumni Service Award (2007)

About Jesse H. Cox

Born on a homestead in Utah, Jesse Cox returned to his family's home state of Indiana when he was four, and his mother died a year later. While his father supported him and his two brothers and a sister by farming and building homes, Jesse worked from the age of six on family farms or businesses. He married his high school sweetheart, Beulah Chanley, in 1939, the same year as he enrolled in Indiana University. He put himself through IU by creating a mimeograph enterprise and a transportation service between Bloomington and Indianapolis.

After earning a business degree from IU in 1942, he started the J.H. Cox Manufacturing Co., which supplied venetian blinds to retailers Sears & Roebuck, L.S. Ayres and William H. Block. Shortly afterward, Jesse and Beulah bought a small bankrupt company and started Aero Blind & Drapery Inc., which grew over several decades to become a thriving Indianapolis firm with 920 employees and annual sales of $30 million. Through other ventures, Jesse H. Cox Inc. and B.J. Realty Inc., the Coxes began farming nearly 1,500 acres in Boone, Hamilton and Putnam counties, and buying and managing commercial real estate rental property.

Their many successful business ventures allowed the Coxes to financially support both their community and Indiana University. In 1999, Cox and his late wife, Beulah, donated 126 acres and three homes to the Hamilton County Parks Department to create the Coxhall Gardens in Carmel, Ind. Early funds donated by the Xoces were used to develop the Arboretum on the site of the old Memorial Stadium at IU Bloomington. Their donated funds were also used to build and maintain the Jesse H. and Beulah Chanley Cox Pavilion in the Arboretum. Both the pavilion and the Arboretum were named for the Coxes in 1997. The couple's generosity also established the Jesse H. and Beulah Chanley Cox Scholars program, which provides scholarships for working students on IU's Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses. The $85 million gift was the largest ever received by IU from individuals, and also the largest individual gift for scholarships.

For his service to the state, Cox was named a Sagamore of the Wabash by Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon in 2002.

  • University
  • Presidential
  • Research & Creative Activity
  • Artistic & Performance
  • Teaching
  • Service
  • Student
  • Athletic
  • Alumni
  • Philanthropy

University Honors & Awards resources

  • Office of the President

Indiana University

Accessibility | Privacy Notice | Copyright © 2021 The Trustees of Indiana University