Lakeside Gets Alums' Millions

Bill Gates, Paul Allen and four brothers of the McCaw cellular-telephone family are expected to announce tonight they are donating as much as $30 million to their high-school alma mater, Lakeside School.

They will establish a fund to provide a 2-to-1 match of other private donations Lakeside is able to solicit: If the school raises $15 million from other sources, it will receive the full $30 million from the Gates-Allen-McCaw fund.

Gates and Allen, who met at Lakeside and went on to co-found Microsoft in 1975, will donate $10 million each. The remaining $10 million will be contributed evenly by the four McCaw brothers, Craig, Bruce, John and Keith, and also Lakeside alumni.

Matt Griffin, a Lakeside trustee and chairman of the school's capital campaign, said the donation will supplement an endowment fund, which currently stands at $13 million, and will help to finance construction projects.

Gates and Allen each donated $2.2 million to Lakeside in 1986, the year Microsoft began selling stock to the public. The McCaw brothers also have made earlier contributions, Griffin said.

Craig McCaw built his family's cable-television business into the nation's largest cellular-telephone company, McCaw Cellular, before selling it to AT&T in 1994 for $11.5 billion.