Thanks a Million
Or more precisely, $369.35 million; that’s how much the most generous Texans have given away since June 1995. Presenting our tally of the state’s top philanthropists: who gives, TO WHOM, and why.
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Robert and Janice McNair
HOUSTON, $3 MILLION
$3 million to Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina, to help pay for the new Barbara Bush Center for Science and Technologies. Mrs. McNair is a Columbia alumna; Mr. McNair is the CEO of CoGen Technologies Energy Group, one of the country’s largest non-utility cogenerators of electricity and thermal energy. (October 1996)
Mike A. Meyers
DALLAS, $3 MILLION
$3 million to the University of Texas at Austin for athletics. Mr. Myers, the chairman and president of Myers Financial Corporation, is a UT alum. (November 1996)
Robert Ragsdale
AUSTIN, $3 MILLION
$3 million to St. Edward’s University in Austin to help pay for the construction of a student center that will be named after his late wife, Pearle. Mr. Ragsdale, who along with his wife trained flight instructors and Navy fliers in Austin, Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas, said he made the gift because he wanted to do something for the cash-poor school that had educated his brother and two nephews. (May 1997)
Previous gifts: $500,000 to St. Edward’s.
John and Debbie Tolleson
DALLAS, $3 MILLION
$3 million to Southern Methodist University to endow the deanship of its Edwin L. Cox School of Business; income from the endowment will help pay the dean’s salary and provide resources for new programs at the school. Mr. Tolleson, the chairman of First USA Paymentech, the nation’s third-largest processor of bank card transactions, attended SMU. (September 1997)
Previous gifts: $200,000 to SMU.
Thomas and Dottie Swift
DALLAS, $2.2 MILLION
$2.2 million to the Shelton School and Evaluation Center in Dallas—the largest gift in the history of the school, whose students are learning-disabled. $1.26 million will be used for a capital expansion program, including a new early childhood and elementary school; $500,000 is earmarked for the creation of a high school; $240,000 will pay for scholarships; and the remaining $200,000 will be used to expand computer facilities. The Swifts have two children enrolled at Shelton. Mr. Swift, who owns Swift Property, a real estate investment firm, is on the school’s board of trustees. (May 1996)
John R. and Eileen Stanley
Humble, $2.15 million
$2.15 million to the Baylor College of Medicine to endow a chair in plastic and reconstructive microsurgery and to fund research in plastic and reconstructive surgery. Mr. Stanley is the CEO of TransTexas Gas Corporation, one of the state’s largest independent producers and marketers of natural gas. (March 1997)
Jack S. and Laura Lee Blanton
Houston, $2 million
$2 million to Southern Methodist University to build an academic development complex for undergraduate students, including a classroom, a writing center, a computer lab, and private testing and study areas. The complex will be named for both Mrs. Blanton, an SMU trustee, and Mr. Blanton, the president of Eddy Refining, the chairman of the Houston Endowment (see page 107), and a past chair of the University of Texas System Board of Regents. (February 1997)
Previous gifts: More than $1 million to SMU.
Doris R. Dealey
DALLAS, $2 MILLION $2 million to presbyterian hospital in Dallas to help fund its new child-care center—the single largest donation by an individual to the hospital. Mrs. Dealey made the gift in memory of her husband, Joe M. Dealey, a former chairman and CEO of the A. H. Belo Corporation and president of the Dallas Morning News. (September 1996)
Ernest and Sarah Butler
AUSTIN, $1.5 MILLION
$1.5 million to the austin museum of art. Mr. Butler, a retired physician, sits on the museum’s board; he and Mrs. Butler are longtime Austin art patrons. (May 1997)
W. Robert Beavers
DALLAS, $1.4 MILLION
$1.4 million to Southern Methodist University to endow a center for the study of family issues. Dr. Beavers, an adjunct professor of psychology at SMU, will be the center’s director. (June 1997)
Dora Lee Byars Langdon
GRANBURY, $1.3 MILLION
$1.3 million in real estate to Tarleton State University in Stephenville. Ms. Langdon, a violinist, gave the university a square block in Granbury containing five historic buildings and an acoustically acclaimed recital hall, the largest donation in the school’s history. (June 1996)
John C. and Jeff Wooley
AUSTIN, $1.3 MILLION
$1.3 million to the Austin Children’s Museum. “If you look at all the issues that society faces, it all boils down to children,” said John C. Wooley, the president of the Schlotzsky’s restaurant chain (Jeff is the vice president). (June 1996)
John McHale
AUSTIN, $1.25 MILLION $1.25 million to the university of dayton in Ohio to create a basketball complex. Mr. McHale, the founder of NetSpeed, a company that develops high-speed modems for Internet access, is an alumnus of the university. (October 1996)
Robert B. and Candice J. Haas
DALLAS, $1.2 MILLION
$1.2 million to Harvard University Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to underwrite visiting professorships in corporate-finance law. Mr. Haas, the chairman and CEO of Haas, Wheat, and Partners, a private investment firm specializing in leveraged buyouts, is an alumnus of the law school. (January 1996)
Kenneth and Ruth Altshuler
DALLAS, $1 MILLION
$1 million to southern methodist university to create a learning enhancement center. The donation will also serve as a challenge to others to contribute to the center, which will be expanded and renamed in honor of the Altshulers. Mrs. Altshuler is an SMU trustee and a co-chair of the university’s capital campaign; Dr. Altshuler chairs the department of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. (December 1995)
Previous gifts: A total of more than $3 million to SMU.
Michael and Susan Dell
AUSTIN, $1 MILLION
$1 million to the Austin Children’s Museum for its expansion campaign. The Dells have four children. “We put a great value on science and technology,” said Mrs. Dell, whose husband is the chairman of Dell Computer Corporation. (April 1997)
Bob, Jan, and Debbie Duncan
Arlington, $1 million $1 million to the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Arlington—the largest the organization has ever received—as part of its long-term fundraising effort. Mr. Duncan runs J. C. Duncan Companies and Arlington Disposal, the city’s garbage disposal company. (May 1996)
Philosophy of giving: “My daddy always said you have to keep giving back to the city you live in,” Mr. Duncan has said.
Virginia Garrett
FORT WORTH, $1 MILLION
$1 million to the University of Texas at Arlington in the form of a map collection that gives the university the world’s largest collection of maps of the Southwest. Among the nine hundred maps is a series of Gulf of Mexico maps that dates back to the 1500’s. “I have been fascinated by maps since I was a child,” said Mrs. Garrett, a longtime map collector who is married to former UT System regent Jenkins Garrett. (September 1997)
Jack H. Hamilton
DALLAS, $1 MILLION
$1 million to Southern Methodist University to establish an endowed visiting scholars program in geophysics. Mr. Hamilton is the retired chairman of Teledyne Geotech. (October 1997)
John P. and Dorothy Harbin
DALLAS, $1 MILLION
$1 million to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas for Alzheimer’s disease research. Mr. Harbin, the chairman and CEO of Lone Star Technologies, is a past director of Zale Lipshy University Hospital, UT-Southwestern’s referral and teaching hospital. (May 1997)
Milledge A. III and Linda Hart
DALLAS, $1 MILLION
$1 million to Southern Methodist University to establish a Global Leaders Forum that will operate in conjunction with the university’s John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies. Mr. Hart is the chairman of the Hart Group, an investment company. (December 1996)
Robert T. Hayes
DALLAS, $1 MILLION
$1 million to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas to support psychiatric research. Mr. Hayes’s nephew was on the faculty of UT-Southwestern. Mr. Hayes is the chairman of Hayes Leasing Company. (April 1997)
Previous gifts: $1 million to UT-Southwestern.
Beverly Pevehouse
MIDLAND, $1 MILLION
$1 million to the stehlin foundation in Houston, a cancer research facility at which her late husband, Joseph, was a patient. Mrs. Pevehouse is a Stehlin trustee. (September 1996)
B. M. “Mack” Rankin
DALLAS, $1 MILLION
$1 million to the University of Texas at Austin for athletics. Mr. Rankin, a founder of Freeport-McMoRan, a New Orleans minerals company, is a UT alum. (December 1996)
Robert S. and Marilyn I. Silverthorn
HOUSTON, $1 MILLION
$1 million through their family foundation to the Dallas chapter of the alzheimer’s women’s association for resources and education. Mrs. Silverthorn, whose mother had Alzheimer’s disease, spearheaded the gift in the hope of finding a cure for the disease. (January 1996)
Jim and Pat Walzel
HOUSTON, $1 MILLION
$1 million to Southwestern University to renovate its physical education center, part of which has been renamed the Walzel Courts and Natatorium. Mr. Walzel, the chairman of HNG Storage, a natural gas storage company, is a Southwestern trustee; the Walzels’ daughter is a Southwestern alum. (June 1995)
Carol Carpenter Winkel
MIDLAND, $1 MILLION
$1 million to the University of Texas at Austin for athletics. Mrs. Winkel, the president of Winkel Enterprises, an investment firm, is a UT alumna. (October 1996)
Charles J. Wyly, Jr.
IRVING, $1 MILLION
$1 million to Southern Methodist University’s Edwin L. Cox School of Business to endow a professorship in management-information sciences. Mr. Wyly is the vice chairman of Sterling Software. (June 1997)
The Zale Family
DALLAS, $1 MILLION
$1 million to Texas A&M University to endow the M. B. Zale Chair in Retailing and Marketing Leadership and the Zale Leadership Program. The late M. B. Zale was the founder and CEO of the Zale Corporation; Mr. Zale’s son Donald, the chairman of the M. B. and Edna Zale Foundation, is an Aggie alumnus. (July 1997)
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