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HERRIMAN - The 70-year-old father of six stopped talking and began to weep.
"You'll have to excuse me," Cletus Hamilton said.
Hamilton was trying to explain why he and his wife, Sharon, 70, decided to donate 10.5 acres in Riverton, worth about $1 million, for a school that will serve special-needs students.
Jordan School District gave their daughter, who has Down syndrome, a better life, so they are giving the district some of their best land - roughly 20 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
"We have the Jordan School District to thank for teaching us that Kauri Sue could do more than we thought she could," Sharon Hamilton said. "The Jordan School District made our path easier. We want to give something back - for the people who follow us who might have the same challenges we faced."
During a ceremony at Tuesday night's Jordan School Board meeting in Sandy, the Herriman couple formally announced their gift in the name of their daughter, now 36.
When the $10 million Kauri Sue Hamilton School for Students with Disabilities opens in fall 2011, it will educate disabled students ages 5 to 22. The school will be built near 2700 W. 13400 South in Riverton, the last of 22 schools paid for with a $281 million voter-approved bond, said district spokeswoman Melinda Colton.
"I don't know what I would've done if Kauri had had to stay with me [when she was growing up]," Sharon Hamilton said.
The Hamiltons had older friends who never had the opportunity to send their children to a school that could teach and nurture them.
"One of them, her daughter [who is at least 10 years older than Kauri Sue] still can't button her blouse or tie her shoe," Sharon said.
Kauri Sue, however, who has the mental capacity of a 7-year-old, lives in Deseret Village, a group home in Spanish Fork, and works at Central Utah Enterprises in Provo, where she launders mechanics' cloths.
She attended three Jordan district schools until she was 22 - Jordan Valley in Midvale, Bingham High in South Jordan and South Valley School in West Jordan.
The youngest of six children, Kauri Sue said after Tuesday night's meeting that she was "so happy she could cry." Her father took it one step further and did. He choked up during the meeting as board members shook the family's hands, presented them with a framed certificate and thanked the Hamiltons.
Audience members gave a standing ovation; Kauri Sue responded with a double thumbs-up sign as she walked back to her seat.
"We simply couldn't be more appreciative of the Hamiltons' generosity," Superintendent Barry Newbold said. "Because of this donation, very precious tax dollars that would have been used to purchase land can be used to further enhance services for all students in our district, including special-education students. Everyone benefits from this donation: students, parents, taxpayers and the community at large."
School Board President Peggy Jo Kennett also applauded the gesture.
"At a time when so many factions are attacking public education, it is wonderful to see this great example of support," she wrote in an e-mail. "This facility will help us provide services more easily for special-ed students on the west side."
That delights the Hamiltons, too. Currently, the district buses special-needs students living in Herriman and Riverton to Jordan Valley in Midvale - the same one-way, 90-minute commute Kauri Sue endured when she went to school.
Though Cletus Hamilton is "just tickled" to be able to donate the land, the journey he and his wife began 36 years ago with Kauri Sue was anything but a celebration.
"It was hard to accept at first," Hamilton said through his tears. "It knocks you off your pedestal a bit."
"But then our kids said, what's wrong with us? She's the cutest little thing," Sharon Hamilton said.
"You don't ever get over the shock," Cletus Hamilton said. "It's a burden and a blessing. I wouldn't trade her for anything. You don't like all the obligations that come to you, but they're yours. You can't leave them and, in the end, you don't want to."