In 1964 Clayton Arnold, a farmer and rural mail carrier in Williamson County, who had retired in 1961 at the age of 70, entered into a life-income agreement with UT to receive the interest from the tidy fortune the thrifty bachelor had accumulated. The principal would go to establish scholarships in the College of Education upon his death. His gifts amounted to more than $1 million. In 1965 he issued a challenge to potential givers to UT by pledging to match every penny of new scholarship money given to UT in 1966 up to $100,000.
Born in Thompson Station in the house in which he still lived, Thompson held a wide range of jobs—farmer, general store owner, postmaster, and rural mail carrier on a route that covered 72 miles and served fifteen hundred people. In the 1920s he studied at Nashville’s night law school, and while he did not receive a degree, he did pass the Tennessee Bar Examination. He served in the army in World War I.
He was the first person to be named an honorary member of UT’s Alumni Association, and he was named Outstanding Contributor to the university and was initiated into UT’s ODK chapter in April 1976. The Clayton Arnold Commons in the Claxton Complex commemorates his support of UT.