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UT to bestow its highest honor on Rapoport
Waco’s best-known philanthropist tonight is receiving the highest award that the University of Texas System Board of Regents gives.
During an evening banquet at Austin’s historic Driskell Hotel, regents are awarding the Santa Rita Award to 90-year-old Waco businessman Bernard Rapoport for his decades-long association with UT institutions. The regents’ decision to award him the honor was announced in February.
The award is named for Santa Rita No. 1, the first producing oil well on UT System property in West Texas. The well produced oil from 1923 to 1990, spurring growth of the Permanent University Fund.
The award is not an annual honor but given out only occasionally to those whose contributions and efforts have come over a sustained period of time. Past honorees include Harry H. Ransom, Bob Bullock, William P. Hobby and, receiving the very first Santa Rita Award in 1968, Miss Ima Hogg.
“It’s not something taken lightly by the board of regents,” spokesman Matt Flores said of the award today. “There’s only been 20 of these given out in 40 years.”
Rapoport’s gifts to UT Austin, UT San Antonio, UT Health Science Center at Houston, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston total more than $26 million, and have funded buildings, established scholarships and created endowed chairs, among other things.
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