Ellen Thompson is married to a man renowned in Michigan for his philanthropy, and admits that far more people know him than her.

Her husband of 70 years, Bob Thompson, was thrust into the national spotlight in 1999 after the sale of what was then Michigan's largest asphalt paving company, Thompson McCully Co., for $422 million. He gave away $128 million, a third of the sale's proceeds, to 550 employees, including 80 longtime employees he made millionaires.

That same year, the couple set up the Thompson Foundation and began giving away their fortune to numerous causes, eventually focusing on education. They funded the building of University Prep, a charter school system in Detroit, and upgraded the technology in several rural Michigan school districts.

But it was Ellen Thompson's idea to

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