Philanthropist

A scion of a prominent Chester County family has been indicted by a federal grand jury on multiple sex-tourism counts. John Charles Ware, 47, who runs the Oxford Foundation, a family philanthropy, was arrested Friday morning at his Oxford home. Ware is a former member of the Chester County Parks and Recreation Board and he served as a board member of Chester County 2010, a quality-of-life nonprofit. He was a generous benefactor to four young boys he allegedly groomed to have sexual contact with him. When the boys turned 13, Ware invited each on an international trip, U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger said.

Arts philanthropist Kenneth Schneider arrived in Philadelphia Friday after being extradited from Cyprus to face federal sex tourism charges, the Justice Department said. Founder and president of the Apogee Foundation, Schneider is accused of traveling in 1998 to Moscow, where he engaged in sex with a 12-year-old boy. Schneider, an international lawyer whose website said he represented Russian oil entrepreneurs, allegedly continued the relationship for eight years. During that time, he brought the boy, a ballet student, to Philadelphia to study at the Rock School.

Thomas O. Gillespie, 78, of Glen Mills, a building contractor and philanthropist, died of heart failure Christmas Day at Riddle Memorial Hospital. Since the early 1970s, Mr. Gillespie's firm, TOG Construction, had built several hundred homes in the area, including 26 houses in Bethel Township at the Moors at Scot's Glen, named in honor of his Scottish ancestry. Mr. Gillespie also operated Go Co., a construction firm in Glen Mills. For 50 years, until it closed earlier this year, he co-owned Gillespie & Ritchie Plumbing and Heating in Lima.

He is one of the world's richest men and one of its most generous. His $125 million gift to Harvard was that university's largest ever, besting even David Rockefeller, whose single biggest donation to the school was $100 million. West Chester resident Hansj?rg Wyss also has donated tens of millions to environmental organizations in the American West. At 74, he can hike for days carrying a 40- to 50-pound backpack, a feat that would defy many younger people. Wyss also is chairman of Synthes in West Chester, which faces 52 felony counts stemming from allegations that it illegally experimented on patients, three of whom died.

"A philanthropist of global acclaim," Prince Charles declared in a video love letter. "She was a benefactor of the cultural class as well as the underclass," said Tom Brokaw. "It was never about Lee, it was always about others. " Yesterday, it was finally about Lee - Leonore Annenberg, the civic leader and philanthropist who died in March at 91. Leaders in the realms of education, science, medicine, arts and culture, philanthropy, business, and politics gathered to remember her in a 90-minute tribute at the Academy of Music.

David W. Haas, a philanthropist and an heir to the Rohm & Haas Co. fortune, acknowledged yesterday that he is one of three investors who have stepped forward to try to clear Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C. of debt and keep the company under its current management. Also yesterday, the two sides in the bankruptcy reorganization case agreed to postpone a critical hearing on bid procedures that was scheduled for today. Haas, in a statement explaining his decision to invest in the company, said: "I have long had a personal interest in the role of journalism as an important force in civic life - locally and nationally.

Game nights mean Heidi Hamels doesn't get to bed until 2 a.m., and on this Tuesday - after the Phillies' joyous blowout of the Cincinnati Reds - she has to be up extra early. Before the wife of the World Series MVP can buy $1,200 in baseball equipment for orphans in Turkmenistan and spend several hours cleaning up the grimy, long-shuttered library at John B. Stetson Middle School, she must withstand six morning radio interviews promoting an E! baseball wives' special. When you're cute and blond - and married to Cole "Hollywood" Hamels - and you've survived Survivor, and oh, yeah, you've appeared topless on the cover of Playboy, people get a certain impression about you. And it's pretty superficial.

John Martin Seabrook, 91, scion of the behemoth Cumberland County farm bearing his family's name and a successful international businessman and philanthropist who donated the largest farmland preserve in New Jersey's history, died of heart failure Wednesday at home in Aiken, S.C. Mr. Seabrook's interest in New Jersey agriculture started at age 9 when he worked in the vegetable fields on the farm started by his father, C.F., and his grandfather....