By Melissa Dunson
mdunson@joplinglobe.com
The recently completed Freeman West Tower, as of Thursday, has a new name, thanks to the largest donation the hospital system has ever received.
During a ceremony Thursday night, Gary Duncan, president and chief executive officer of Freeman Health System, announced that Gary and Donna Hall had donated $4.5 million to the Freeman Foundation.
From now on, the new 186,000-square-foot Freeman West Tower that opened last October will be referred to as the Gary and Donna Hall Tower.
Terri Heckmaster, executive director of the Freeman Foundation, said the next-largest gift the foundation has ever received was just less than $1 million. The $4.5 million gift also puts the foundation well past a goal, set two years ago, of raising $10 million by 2010. The foundation now has assets of $12 million. At the appreciation event, Duncan announced the foundation’s new goal of $20 million by 2012.
The gift
Although the Halls’ donation earned them a name on the new tower, Duncan said the $4.5 million gift is more about the future of Freeman than about any current project. The tower cost Freeman about $50 million to build, and the hospital sold 30-year bonds to pay for it.
Duncan said part of the Halls’ gift could be used to help pay off those bonds if the stock market makes it profitable to pay them off ahead of schedule. But Duncan said the money more likely will become part of the foundation’s investment portfolio and help fund future projects.
“We’re not just talking facilities, but about finding new ways to serve the community,” he said.
He used the recently completed Ozark Center for Autism as an example of the kinds of projects for which the Halls’ donation might be used.
“This is no longer about ‘give us the money and we’ll build a building,’” he said. “If you look at innovation, it doesn’t come out of a checkbook, but out of partnering with visionary people.”
The givers
Gary Hall was born in Joplin and went to school in Galena, Kan. Donna Hall grew up in Phoenix, Ariz., and moved to Joplin after high school. The couple have been married for 20 years, and have three daughters and seven grandchildren.
Gary Hall worked as a top-selling agent for Prudential Insurance Co., and then owned several local tobacco supply companies, including Discount Tobacco Warehouse in Joplin, and Sunflower Supply Co. and Rebel Industries, both in Galena. Donna Hall owned and operated several video stores in the Kansas City area.
The Halls divide their time between Joplin and Las Vegas, Nev. According to Freeman officials, the Halls did not want to make any comment regarding the gift, and they struggled with making their gift public.
Melissa Dunson is the business writer for The Joplin Globe.
Others honored
Several other Freeman benefactors were honored during the event, and those who have donated more than $500,000 unveiled oil portraits of themselves done by Carthage artist Andy Thomas. The portraits will hang in the areas named after the benefactors.
