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

36. J. VIRGIL and JUNE WAGGONER–$5 million to the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN for research into the genetic causes of alcoholism. Waggoner retired last year as the CEO of Sterling Chemicals, a producer of petrochemical products.



36. MICHAEL and ZENA WEINER–$5 million to MOUNT SINAI MEDICAL CENTER (New York) for the cardiovascular institute. Michael Weiner was the founder and chairman of Infinity Broadcasting Corp., which was purchased by CBS (formerly known as Westinghouse) last year. Zena Weiner is a vocalist and pianist.



36. BOB and MARION WILSON–$5 million from the president of Duckett-Wilson Development Co. and his wife to the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES to benefit the School of Dentistry, the department of intercollegiate athletics, the College of Letters and Sciences, and the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.



36. GARY WILSON and BARBERA THORNHILL–$5 million to DUKE UNIVERSITY (N.C.) from the co-chairman of Northwest Airlines Inc. and his wife to help build a new recreational fitness facility on campus. The money pledged will be used for a 99,000-square-foot facility on Duke’s west campus. Wilson is a 1962 Duke graduate who played on the school’s 1961 Cotton Bowl championship football squad and a member of the university’s board of trustees.



36. ANNE ROWELL WORRELL and T. EUGENE WORRELL–$5 million to VIRGINIA INTERMONT COLLEGE. Anne Worrell, a 1939 graduate of the college, announced the gift after she and her husband sold Bristol Newspapers Inc. to Media General Inc. The gift will be used to endow scholarships, renovate space for academic programs, and construct new buildings.



36. THE WILLIAM WRIGLEY FAMILY–$5 million to the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA to help refurbish the marine biology lab on Santa Catalina Island. The donation will go toward renovation of dormitories and dock and diving facilities at the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, which is being made over as an interdisciplinary laboratory where visiting scholars can collaborate with mainland colleagues via teleconferences. One reason for the $12-million renovation of the marine lab, according to Morton Schapiro, dean of USC’s college of letters, arts and sciences, is the burgeoning popularity of the university’s undergraduate environmental-studies program. William Wrigley is chairman and director of the Wrigley Family Foundation (Ill.).



67. JOHN W. SWEETLAND–Nearly $5 million to the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN to launch an innovative Writing Center for undergraduates. The center will be named in honor of Sweetland’s late wife, Gayle Morris Sweetland, who was an award-winning writer and editor and publisher of U. magazine. John Sweetland is a 1958 graduate of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts and also holds a master’s degree from the university.



68. KATHRYN ALBERTSON–$4.5 million to ALBERTSON COLLEGE (Idaho) for endowment of scholarships from the widow of the founder of the grocery-store chain Albertson’s Inc. Albertson College, formerly the College of Idaho, is a private, liberal-arts institution in Caldwell that was renamed for Joe and Kathryn Albertson in1991.



68. LAURENCE A. and PRESTON ROBERT TISCH–$4.5 millionto the CHILDREN’S ZOO in Central Park, New York. The gift replaces the $3-million donation to the zoo withdrawn by Henry and Edith Everett after a dispute over how their gift would be commemorated. Laurence Tisch said he had agreed to replace the gift without knowing the identity of the original donors and that the new gift had nothing to do with the Everetts, who earlier had criticized the choice of Tisch’s son James as the new head of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York because of his interests in the Lorillard Tobacco Co. The new zoo will now be called the Tisch Children’s Zoo. Laurence Tisch’s previous charitable donations include $30 million to the New York University Medical Center and a $7.5-million gift that helped found NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Laurence A. Tisch is senior vice president and Preston Robert Tisch is president of the Tisch Foundation Inc. (N.Y.), through which the gift was made. Both are donors or trustees of several other foundations.



70. THE MONKS OF ST. GREGORY’S ABBEY–$4.4 million to ST. GREGORY’S COLLEGE (Okla.) for the capital campaign.