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A county music teacher left $3.5 million to her alma mater Seton Hill University upon her death earlier this year, the largest alumnae gift the Catholic liberal arts school has ever received.

The money donated by Carol Ann Reichgut, who graduated from Seton Hill in 1956 with a degree in music education, will be used to create an endowment fund for minority scholarships, according to a statement from the Greensburg, Pa., school. A concert hall in Seton Hill's Performing Arts Center will be named after her.

The former Silver Spring resident had also donated $50,000 a year to minority scholarships beginning several years after her retirement, according to Molly Robb Shimko, associate vice president for institutional advancement at Seton Hill.

Reichgut, 74, died Jan. 8, according to Washington, D.C.-based attorney Doris Blazek-White, who represents Reichgut's estate. Reichgut did not have any known living relatives, Blazek-White said.

Reichgut retired from Montgomery County Public Schools in 1990 after 34 years, according to school system spokesman Steve Simon. She taught music at Oak View and Pine Crest elementary schools in Silver Spring and at Rolling Terrace Elementary School in Takoma Park, he said.

Reichgut received the Distinguished Alumna Leadership Award from Seton Hill in 2001.

"She was a very intellectual woman," said Christine Mueseler, vice president for advancement and marketing in Seton Hill. "She loved talking about politics, and she was very well-traveled."

Reichgut and Mueseler met in 1998 and went out for lunch about four times a year at La Ferme Restaurant in Chevy Chase, where Reichgut ate several times a week, Mueseler said. Many of the restaurant's employees had recently moved to the United States, she said, and the friendships she made there contributed to Reichgut's desire to help minority students.

"I think she always thought if they had more of an education, they would have more choices," Mueseler said.