Red and Charline McCombs of San Antonio have been selected to receive the 2006 President’s Philanthropy Award from Southwestern University. Since 1971, the McCombs have given more than $8 million to Southwestern.

“Southwestern would not be the same institution it is today without the generous and far-sighted philanthropy of Red and Charline McCombs,” said Southwestern President Jake B. Schrum. “They have been particularly generous with gifts that have enriched the lives of our students.”

The McCombs’ contributions to Southwestern have included:

  • $6 million for the Red & Charline McCombs Campus Center, which was dedicated in 1998. The gift was the largest alumni gift in Southwestern’s history. A portion of the McCombs’ collection of rare artifacts from early American and Texas history is on display in the campus center.
  • $1 million for the Charline Hamblin McCombs Residential Center, which opened in 2001 and provides apartment-style housing for students who have completed a certain number of credit hours.
  • $1 million for new intramural fields for Southwestern students.
  • $250,000 for a Global Leadership Initiative in 1999 that allowed students and alumni in the medical field to work in the Balkans during the Kosovo crisis.
  • Funds for several student scholarships, including the Bishop Ernest T. Dixon, Jr. Scholarships for Minority Students administered through the Texas Methodist Foundation and the Dan Rather Endowed Scholarship.

The McCombs also have given generously of their time to Southwestern. Red McCombs has served on Southwestern’s Board of Trustees since 1987 and was chair of the board from 1992 through 2000 during the historic Leadership 2000 Campaign, which raised more than $91 million. He currently serves as an honorary chair of Thinking Ahead: The Southwestern Campaign, which has a goal of $125 million. Charline McCombs was an inaugural member of Southwestern’s Board of Visitors.

A native of Spur, Texas, Red McCombs attended Southwestern University and the University of Texas. He left law school to embark on a successful business career that has included ventures in the automobile industry, real estate, oil and gas, broadcasting and ranching. In 1953 he bought his first sports team, the Corpus Christi Clippers. Eventually he would own the San Antonio Spurs (twice), the Denver Nuggets and the Minnesota Vikings.

Charline Hamblin McCombs was raised in Corpus Christi and attended Southwestern in the 1940s before her marriage to Red in 1950.

Other beneficiaries of the McCombs’ generosity include M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where Red McCombs chaired the board and led a campaign to raise $150 million; the University of Texas, where a naming gift established the McCombs School of Business; Las Casas Foundation; and the San Antonio public schools.

Southwestern has previously recognized the McCombs with honorary doctorates and the SU Medal for their long and distinguished record of achievement.

Previous recipients of the President’s Philanthropy Award at Southwestern University include the Cullen family of Houston and The Brown Foundation Inc.