AUG 15, 2005 | Gov. Mike Huckabee said he was a skeptic when Fay W. Boozman, M.D., came to him in 1999 asking that a school of public health be built using the state's share of a tobacco industry legal settlement.

But Boozman, then director of the Arkansas Department of Health, convinced him. That's why the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) four-year-old College of Public Health was rightfully named in Boozman's honor and memory, Huckabee said at the Aug. 10 naming ceremony.

Boozman, 58, died March 19 in an accident at his farm.

"He sold the idea of a school of public health with passion and complete understanding," Huckabee recalled for roughly 300 family members, friends and colleagues of Boozman at the ceremony in the College of Public Health's Bruce Commons. "We wouldn't have a school of public health had he not been so tenacious."

Boozman's wife, Vickey, told the audience that when her husband came home after learning that the College of Public Health would become a reality, "He was ecstatic."

Soon after Boozman's death, Huckabee said he began making phone calls to members of the University of Arkansas System Board of Trustees pitching the idea of naming the College of Public Health for Boozman. The state Legislature also approved a resolution calling for the name change, and the UA System Board of Trustees later adopted a resolution naming the college for Boozman.

As director of the Department of Health, a post he took in 1998, Boozman championed public health efforts that seek to change attitudes and promote healthier lifestyles statewide.

The UAMS alumnus, an ophthalmologist who also earned a master's of public health degree, played a key role in steering millions of dollars from the 1998 tobacco industry legal settlement to health-related causes, including the College of Public Health. In addition, he helped create the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, a partnership between UAMS, the Health Department and Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield that serves as a resource for improving the health of Arkansans.

UAMS' newest college, under the direction of Dean James Raczynski, Ph.D., is responsible for developing programs that reach into communities to help people stay healthy. The college's efforts are focused primarily on changing attitudes about tobacco, food choices and physical activity, all of which are major factors affecting the leading causes of death and disability.

Arkansas for years has been among the least healthy states in the country, a fact that heightens the significance of the successful campaign to target health care with the $50 million to $60 million a year the state gets from the tobacco settlement. Arkansas is the only state that continues to spend its tobacco settlement proceeds entirely on health.

Arkansans in 2000 endorsed the health plan with a 65 percent vote for the Tobacco Settlement Proceeds Act, which called for funding the College of Public Health at UAMS.

During the college's 2002 construction, Boozman said it symbolized a "growing commitment to the citizens of Arkansas that we're no longer going to accept the fact that we're one of the unhealthiest states." The 120,000-square-foot building was paid for mostly with $15 million from the state's tobacco settlement money.

UAMS Chancellor I. Dodd Wilson, M.D., said the naming is a fitting tribute.

"Fay's work toward improving the health of every Arkansan was a mission he took to heart," Wilson said. "Not only did he work on behalf of others, like the governor, he set a tremendous example by his actions. In recent years, Fay was exercising regularly and had lost more than 70 pounds."

The College of Public Health receives 5 percent of the state's share of the tobacco settlement, which varies from year to year. As the number of faculty has grown, so have the number of grants and contracts at the College of Public Health. Since 2002 when James Raczynski, Ph.D., became dean, the college has received grants and contracts totaling $17,033,759, with $14,076,789 of that currently active.

The COPH is to improve the health and well-being of Arkansans through two primary mechanisms: meeting the public health work force needs for the future and demonstrating how public health approaches can address the health needs of Arkansans via model community programs. Pilot sites for teaching and learning also serve as innovative laboratories for new and creative approaches to old problems. Students learn under the guidance of faculty with the aid of local citizens, schools, hospitals and faith groups about community-based health improvement.

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