1/18/02
AU TO OFFICIALLY DEDICATE PHARMACY SCHOOL FOR HARCO PATRIARCH
AUBURN --- The Auburn University Harrison School of Pharmacy will be officially dedicated to honor Harco Drugs patriarch James I. Harrison Sr. in a ceremony set for Friday, Jan. 25, at 10 a.m. at the W.W. Walker Jr. Pharmacy Building.
The name change, which was approved by the AU Board of Trustees at its August 2001 meeting, will honor Harrison, who grew a single pharmacy in Tuscaloosa into the Harco Drug chain and whose family has supported Auburn pharmacy over many years, including a significant gift the Harrisons made to the pharmacy school last year.
"No other Alabama family has contributed as much to the field of pharmacy in Alabama as the Harrisons," said AU Interim President William F. Walker. "Without a doubt, they are Alabama's first family of pharmacy. The vision the Harrison family exhibited with the founding and growth of the Harco chain is exactly the same kind of vision we hope to cultivate in our graduates from the AU Harrison School of Pharmacy."
"We are extremely proud of the School of Pharmacy's association with the Harrison family," said R. Lee Evans, AU's pharmacy dean. "We're eternally grateful for what they have done and continue to do for the school and honored to name the school for the patriarch of a family and a drug store chain that enjoys an outstanding reputation in pharmacy throughout the state, the Southeast and the nation. This latest gift will prove pivotal in allowing us to move forward with additional facilities."
Walker, Evans and AU Trustee Robert E. Lowder will preside over the naming ceremony. In addition to members of the Harrison family, other speakers will include James A. Main, chair of AU's Pharmacy Advisory Council; Tim Bishop, president of the Auburn Pharmacy Alumni Association; and Deidre Bray, president of the Pharmacy Student Government Association.
James I. Harrison, Sr., was born in rural Perry County and began his pharmacy career as an employee of Wilkerson Drug in Marion while still in high school. Soon after graduating high school, he left for pharmacy school at Auburn, where he was supported not only by his own family, but also by Wilkerson, the owner of the drug store where he had worked.
In 1941, 16 years after receiving his AU pharmacy degree, Harrison and his wife, Elizabeth, opened the first family-owned store, Central Drug in Tuscaloosa. When his son, Jim Jr., graduated from pharmacy school in 1955, the elder Harrison acquired a second store, Druid Drug, on the campus of the University of Alabama that Jim Jr. and his brother, Ben, managed. The Harrisons owned five stores in Tuscaloosa by 1967, when they opened their first "out-of-town" store in Auburn. And the growth continued.
Jim Harrison Jr. grew Harco into a chain of more than 150 stores before the company merged with Rite Aid in 1997. Under his leadership, Chain Drug Review in 1995 named Harco the nations's top community drug store chain.
A graduate of Howard College (now Samford University), Jim has been honored for his distinguished service to the AU School of Pharmacy, Samford University and the University of Alabama, each of which he has served in various advisory capacities. He served as chairman of the board of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores in 1985, received the Merck Sharp & Dohm Pharmacist Achievement Award in 1990, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, Sheldon W. Fantle Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998 and was inducted into the Alabama Business Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Alabama Health Hall of Fame in 1999. Evans said the younger Harrison has always been available when called upon to help the pharmacy program at Auburn.
"He has never hesitated to answer our call," Evans said. "He's a hard worker for anything that he believes in and I'm convinced he believes in what we're doing with our pharmacy program here at Auburn. From what I've heard, he inherited his work ethic from his father, and that makes it even more special to us to be able to honor the family in this way."
AU first established a pharmacy curriculum in 1885 with classes held in Old Main, located where Samford Hall now stands. Eighteen students were enrolled. In 1921, the School of Chemistry and Pharmacy was formed and moved to Ross Chemical Laboratory. In 1941, the pharmacy curriculum became a separate school and, in 1952, began to hold its classes in the then-new Miller Hall.
The School of Pharmacy moved to what is now the Walker Building in 1976 and today AU's pharmacy faculty consists of 42 who are full-time and 150 volunteers who collaborate to provide the curriculum. The school is recognized nationally for its efforts in pharmacy education reform, technological applications to education and practice and re-engineering healthcare environments and systems to improve efficiency and support delivery of pharmaceutical care.
jan02:au-harrison
CONTACT: Evans, 334/844-8348; Gwen Reid, 334/844-1447 or 844-8352