F. Marie Hall
While institutions such as Texas Tech are focused on the health care needs of a region, it is often an individual with a vision that help "make things happen." Such an individual in West Texas is F. Marie Hall. She has provided a vision and resources to assist Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in its role of focusing on rural health issues. F. Marie Hall exemplifies extraordinary vision and passion for rural health care and for young people seeking to become health professionals. The daughter of a rural physician, she remembers making house calls with her father as a child. She learned from her father compassion and generosity. Her philanthropy spans medicine, sports and the arts.
In 1998, she fulfilled a life–long dream to contribute to improving health care in West Texas. The endowment of the F. Marie Hall Chair of Rural Health at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center provides incentives for leadership and creativity in addressing complex issues affecting the health status of people living in rural and frontier regions of West Texas. Specific projects have included GIS mapping of health care resources, economic indicators and disease–specific morbidity and mortality in rural West Texas. In addition, Ms. Hall's generosity also funded foundational work to establish research into childhood obesity issues and the impact of spirituality on health behaviors and outcomes.
The F. Marie Hall Synergistic Center, a student activity center, also bears witness to her commitment to enhancing students' learning experience and development as professionals that can work together as a team to deliver health care.
For her vast generosity and service to TTUHSC, Ms. Hall was awarded an honorary degree, doctor of humane letters in 2002.
Ms. Hall's passion for excellence and innovation, caring spirit, and great appetite for education has significantly enhanced TTUHSC's ability to serve students and the West Texas region.