Donors: Chancellor Bruce Leslie texting on stage during graduation cost Alamo Colleges $4,000

Alamo Colleges Chancellor Bruce Leslie is shown on his phone during Palo Alto College's commencement ceremony on May 21, 2016 at Freeman Coliseum. Alamo Colleges Chancellor Bruce Leslie is shown on his phone during Palo Alto College's commencement ceremony on May 21, 2016 at Freeman Coliseum. Photo: Courtesy/Tony Villanueva Photo: Courtesy/Tony Villanueva Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Donors: Chancellor Bruce Leslie texting on stage during graduation cost Alamo Colleges $4,000 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

SAN ANTONIO — Two regular Alamo Colleges donors, who contributed $17,000 to the district in the past four years, have decided to lower the amount of their annual donation by more than half after Chancellor Bruce Leslie sat on his phone for 40 minutes during a May graduation ceremony, which was first reported by mySA.com.

At a May 21 graduation ceremony, Leslie was on his phone for at least 40 minutes during the proceedings, Tony Villanueva, president of Palo Alto's American Association of University Professors chapter, said at the time.

At the time, photos showed Leslie on his phone while he was sitting on stage with graduating students walking by him.

RELATED: Photos show Alamo Colleges chancellor on phone as graduating students cross stage

Martha, 69, and Steve Hixon, 72, said in an interview with mySA.com Monday that they have made an annual donation, as high as $5,000, to Alamo Colleges since 2012. This year, though, they contributed $1,000, a decrease they explained in a July 25 letter to Leslie.

The letter reads:

"We are writing to you to register our disappointment in your behavior at the graduation ceremonies of ACCD students in May 2016. The behavior to which we are referring is your attention being directed to your cell phone and NOT to the graduation ceremonies of your students and to the students themselves. We find that behavior to have been disrespectful to not only the students, but also to the parents and relatives of those students as well as to the faculty members in attendance. To date, we have not learned of an emergency situation in which you were involved that necessitated your attention to your cell phone. Should that have been the case, of course, our opinion would be adjusted accordingly. However, given the information we have, we wanted you to know that your actions have impacted our annual contribution to the ACCD. We decreased our amount from 2012-$3000, 2013-$5000, 2014-$5000, 2015-$4000, to 2016-$1000. If you are unable to be respectful of your students, why should we?"

Leslie told mySA.com Tuesday by email he never saw the letter.

"This is the first I've seen it," he said, declining to comment on the matter further because "it would be more appropriate and respectful for me to respond directly to" the Hixons first.

The total private gift income to the Alamo Colleges Foundation in 2015 was $2.7 million, Mario Muñiz, Director of District Public Relations, told mySA.com in an email Tuesday. Alamo Colleges officials could not confirm how much the Hixon's have donated and when because it is private.

RELATED: 'Netiquette' criticism accepted, apology made

Both Steve and Martha Hixon, who are retired business owners living in San Antonio, attended an Alamo Colleges campus on their way to earning a degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

Steve Hixon was at the Bracken Cave for an event about a week and a half ago, when he first learned of Leslie's actions during the graduation ceremony and decided to lower the couple's annual contribution amount, he said.

An ACCD teacher told Steve Hixon her son was graduating the day Leslie was on his phone and she was "very concerned about what happened," Steve Hixon said.

"We were all prepared this year to give them $5,000 and when we read in the paper and saw the media coverage of what he did at that graduation ceremony, we were just beyond appalled," Steve Hixon said. "To totally ignore students that are graduating and sit there and look at your cell phone the whole time, I expect that out of junior high school students, I don't expect that from a chancellor. If one of my kids or grandkids had done that, I would have given them a time out."

The couple didn't pull their contribution completely because they "don't want to punish the students who desperately need the scholarship," Steve Hixon said, noting the couple has been "supporting Alamo Colleges for quite awhile."

RELATED: Tuition hikes at Alamo Colleges to be limited — for now

In 2013, Martha Hixon set up the Odelia B. McCarley Nursing Endowed Scholarship that goes toward helping Alamo Colleges nursing students, in honor of her mother, which she now wishes could have been set up with UTSA instead. Despite the long relationship the Hixons have with Alamo Colleges, they have never met Leslie.

The Hixons said they have not heard from any Alamo Colleges official since sending their letter.

Leslie apologized for his actions at the graduation ceremony in a June 8 op-ed in the San Antonio Express-News.

"I do own it, it was inconsiderate, and I apologize for being disrespectful. Saying anything more would appear to be a rationalization or justification, which is not my intent," he wrote.

Martha Hixon said she and her husband attended their son's graduation ceremony this summer and "had that happened at his graduation, I can assure you, I would have been livid, and I would have approached the chancellor at that graduation and reprimanded him."

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5