HOUSTON -- Ron Stone, a Houston broadcasting legend, loved a good story, especially if the topic was Texas, his adopted state. Before he passed away last year, Ron made a bequest to help keep Texas history alive.

Journalism was Ron Stone's profession, but Texas history was his passion.

Ron was an Oklahoman by birth, but he became a Texan by choice.

For him, the story of Texas is the essential American story of equality, industry and community.

"It was everybody's story and the idea that no matter where you came from, you could come here and make your mark. And that what you did in Texas was what mattered, not what happened before. That if you made your mark in Texas, you could stand with the rest of them," son Ron Stone Jr. said.

When Ron passed away last year, he left a bequest to help keep Texas history alive.

A $75,000 gift from the Ron Stone Foundation will be matched by the University of Houston to open the Ron Stone Academy, a summer program for fourth- and seventh-grade history teachers.

"The impulse behind the Ron Stone Academy is to take a stand and say this is worth learning and if someone doesn't pay more attention to it, it might just simply ceased to exist in public mind -- Texas history might," said professor Joseph Pratt, a UH history professor.

Pratt is setting up the program. It's designed to help teachers earn professional credit through contact with current Texas historians and exposure to historical sites such as San Jacinto.

The program is intended to make better teachers to explain the history of the state, a place where the past, as William Faulkner said, is not dead.

"People need to know about the place where they grow up and where they plan to live. They need a sense of context of their history and again of the Texas history as separate of the national identity.

The first scholarships for the Ron Stone Academy will be awarded next year.

Ron anchored the news on KPRC for 20 years before forming a production company. He passed away in May 2008 from prostate cancer at the age of 72.