Honorable Mentions211 other known gifts of more than $1 million in 1997

86. J. LINDSAY JR. and BOBBIE EMBREY–$3 million to SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY. $2 million will be dedicated to construction costs of a building for the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the other $1 million to help fund construction of the Gerald J. Ford Stadium on the campus. Embrey is chairman of First Continental Enterprises Inc., a construction and development company; chairman of Embrey Enterprises; and co-owner of several shopping centers.



86. TED FORSTMANN–$3 million to the WASHINGTON SCHOLARSHIP FUND from its chairman to provide scholarships to help District of Columbia families send their children to schools of their choosing. “I wish it could be more,” said Forstmann. “The lack of educational opportunity available to children in Washington is particularly acute–maybe more than anywhere else in America. Programs like this are sprouting up around the country. I hope this will be the wave of the future: citizens taking responsibility for problems and taking action.” Forstmann is co-founder and senior partner of the private investment firm Forstmann Little & Co.



86. CHARLOTTE GRAGNANI–$3 million to PROVIDENCE COLLEGE (R.I.) to construct a new chapel. Gragnani’s late husband, Francis, was chairman of First Winthrop Corp.



86. DORRANCE HAMILTON–$3 million to THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY (Pa.) to honor three physicians who cared for her late husband, Samuel M.V. Hamilton. Dorrance Hamilton is a member of the Campbell Soup family and director of 218 Enterprises. She is also a trustee of the university.



86. ALBERT M. HIGLEY–$3 million to KENYON COLLEGE (Ohio) for science programs. Higley’s construction company, the Albert M. Higley Co., has erected a number of Kenyon’s buildings.



86. LEONARD and MARY LOU HOEFT–$3 million from the retired chairman of Ziegler Inc., a construction-equipment distributor, and his wife to the UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHAMPAIGN-URBANA to establish chairs in the College of Commerce and Business Administration and the College of Engineering.



86. WALTER C. KLEIN and VIRGILIA H. PANCOAST–$3 million to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at HARVARD UNIVERSITY toward the new humanities center. Klein, an active volunteer for his class and member of the Visiting Committee, retired in 1990 after 43 years at the Bunge Corp., an international food-processing and exporting company. Pancoast, his wife, is an art authenticator and an expert in the area of art forgery. In 1995, the couple established the Walter C. Klein Professorship in the Humanities. Earlier, they had endowed a fund to improve undergraduate teaching.



86. ADAM J. LEWIS–$3 million from this Cleveland philanthropist and his father to OBERLIN COLLEGE (Ohio) to complete construction of the Environmental Studies Center, “one of the most advanced ecologically conceived buildings in America.” The center, it is said, will function like a tree, accruing and storing its own solar power, using energy only when people are on site, and purifying the rainwater it collects in cisterns.



86. MARILYN and DREW LEWIS–$3 million to URSINUS COLLEGE (Pa.) for a new fieldhouse from a former member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and her husband, the retired chairman of Union Pacific Corp. and former U.S. Secretary of Transportation.



86. B.J. “RED” and CHARLINE McCOMBS–A $3-million pledge to the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN in support of women’s athletics from Red McCombs–a San Antonio-based auto dealer, investor, and former owner of the San Antonio Spurs and Denver Nuggets–and his wife. The gift, among the largest ever received by a women’s collegiate athletic program, trailed by days a key U.S. Supreme Court action favoring gender equity in school athletics programs. But Red McCombs, a self-described “red-necked, tobacco-chewing Bubba,” said the gift “has nothing to do with a gender issue. It has something to do with what’s right and what’s fair.” In honor of the McCombs’ generosity, the university plans to name a softball stadium for the couple. The McCombs are both alumni of Southwestern University. B.J. McCombs is president and Charline McCombs vice president of the McCombs Foundation (Texas).