Nick Neupauer, left, president of Butler County Community College, is shown Feb. 21, 2018, with Tim Shaffer, of Prospect, after BC3 announced it had received a $1 million gift from the former state senator. Shaffer’s contribution helped to fund construction of the Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building on the college’s main campus in Butler Township and created BC3’s Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health. Shaffer passed away at age 76 in May 2022. A $3 million gift BC3 received Friday from Shaffer’s estate is the largest in the college’s 58-year history. Submitted photo

PENN TWP — Friends and family of former state Sen. Tim Shaffer gathered Friday, Aug. 4, as his estate willed over $6M to county charities with half supporting community college scholarships.

Friend and former partner Tom King, of Dillon, McCandless, King, Coulter & Graham, called the gift “Tim’s legacy.”

Shaffer, 76, died May 3, 2022.

“His legacy and his message (was) to give to other people,” King said to a gathering at the Butler Country Club. “He was kind, he was good-hearted, he was a partisan, he was a soldier, he was a lawyer, he was a state senator, he was a judge, he was a son, he was a cousin and he was a friend.”

Shaffer left half his estate, totaling just over $3 million, to Butler County Community College’s Education Foundation. Shaffer previously contributed $1 million to the foundation in 2018 which helped fund construction of the Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building.

A lifelong member of the Emmanuel Lutheran Church of Prospect, Shaffer gave them $1.2 million.

Harmony Historic Society also received $1.2 million from Shaffer, a former board member, and the Butler County Historical Society received over $600,000.

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