J Harold Harrison

Dr. Harrison was a retired chief of surgery at St. Joseph’s Hospital of Atlanta, a cattle rancher, and a real-estate investor. Dr. Harrison, who was 86 when he died in 2012, left about $66-million to the Medical College of Georgia Foundation at Georgia Regents University to endow scholarships and professorships at the medical school. Born to a farming family, he earned his medical degree from the college in 1948, when he was only 22, and served as chairman of the foundation in 1974 and 1979. The donor earmarked most of his bequest for scholarships because he wanted to give medical students from Georgia a chance at a top-level medical education in their home state. During his lifetime, he gave the college more than $15-million.