8/31/01
AU SCHOOL OF PHARMACY TO CARRY NAME OF HARCO PATRIARCH
AUBURN -- The Auburn University Board of Trustees on Friday approved the naming of AU's School of Pharmacy in honor of James I. Harrison Sr., a 1925 Auburn pharmacy graduate, in recognition of his family's history of support for AU's pharmacy program, including a recent significant gift to the school from the Harrison Family Foundation.
The board voted unanimously in favor of the move to create the Auburn University James I. Harrison School of Pharmacy. According to AU Interim President William F. Walker, the renaming will honor Alabama's "first family" of pharmacy.
"No other Alabama family has contributed as much to the field of pharmacy in Alabama as the Harrisons," Walker said. "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 kind of vision we hope to cultivate in our graduates from the Auburn 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."
Betty DeMent, AU's vice president for alumni and development, echoed Evans' comments.
"It is a privilege to recognize the legacy of an Auburn alumnus who has done so much to promote the pharmacy profession in the state of Alabama," DeMent said. "The Harrison family's generous investment in Auburn's School of Pharmacy will move it into the circle of nationally recognized professional programs."
Evans added that the association of the Harrison family and the pharmacy school goes back to 1925 and has continued in several ways since then.
"Starting with James Harrison's graduation from Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now AU) with a degree in pharmacy in 1925, we've had a special relationship with the family," Evans said. "They've sent several family members to pharmacy school here, including Mr. Harrison's grandson, Ronnie (a 1980 graduate of the AU School of Pharmacy). They opened their first drug store outside of the Tuscaloosa area here in 1967, the old Harco Campus Drugs, and they've hired a large number of our graduates, who, without fail, have talked about how Harco and the Harrison family treated them as if they were a part of the family."
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 Dr. Wilkerson, the owner of the drug store at which he had worked, who had become set on the young man pursuing a career in pharmacy.
In 1941, 16 years after receiving his AU pharmacy degree, Harrison and his wife, Elizabeth, were able to open 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."
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CONTACT: Evans, 334/844-8348; DeMent, 334/844-1134; Gwen Reid, 334/844- 1447 or 844-8352.