Topeka ? The Nature Conservancy has received a $4.8 million bequest from a Kansas couple, by far the largest donation ever received by the nonprofit group in the state.

The gift from the late Frank and Frances Horton, of Wellington, was announced Tuesday. It is to be divided equally between the conservancy’s work in Kansas and its efforts in the other 49 states and 28 foreign countries, said Alan Pollom, director of the organization in Kansas.

The Hortons operated two businesses, Horton’s Furniture and Carpet in Wichita and Horton’s Inc., an aircraft-related manufacturing company based in Wellington.

The couple became members of the Nature Conservancy in 1989. Frank Horton died in 1996, his wife last year.

The Nature Conservancy works to preserve plant and animal communities through land and water conservation. It controls about 1,400 preserves.

The organization’s Kansas efforts are centered on the tallgrass prairies in the Flint Hills, the central Kansas wetlands and western Kansas’ shortgrass prairies. Before the Hortons’ gift, the conservancy’s largest donation in Kansas was $250,000.