Dorothy Chapman Fuqua, community volunteer, gardener, visionary and wife of the late J.B. Fuqua, has died. She was 93.
A native of Davisboro, Fuqua graduated with honors from Davisboro High School and took business classes at Hurst Business College. While working as a secretary at Sears Roebuck in Augusta, she met J.B. Fuqua, a young broadcaster whom she married in 1954.
In the course of their 61-year marriage, the Fuquas endowed the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, the Fuqua Heart Center at Piedmont Hospital, the Fuqua Center for Late Life Depression at Emory and the Dorothy C. Fuqua Conservatory and Orchid House at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
“I have had the good fortune to go through life with a man who feels the same way I do,” Fuqua said in a 2003 speech.
The 16,000-square-foot Dorothy C. Fuqua Conservatory works to conserve plants from tropical rain forests populated by tropical birds and dart frogs. Adjoining the conservatory is the Fuqua Orchid Center, a collection of more than 10,000 specimens, including the montane orchids that grow at high elevations of 6,000 to 10,000 feet.
Known to many as Dottie, she entertained everyone from her dear friend and first lady Lady Bird Johnson to the Dalai Lama in the Japanese gardens she created over the years at her Atlanta home. She served on more than 20 boards, including the Shepherd Center, George West Mental Health Foundation, Lovett School and Duke University Hospital.
Fuqua was a founding member of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Research Center and served as chairman of the buildings and grounds committee of the Skyland Trail nonprofit mental health treatment organization.
In 2005, the Dorothy C. Fuqua Center was opened and dedicated in her honor for her many contributions to Skyland Trail and the Dorothy C. Fuqua Lecture series was established.
She was a recipient of the Philanthropists of the Year award in 1993 from the National Society of the Fund Raising Executives, the 2002 Legends Award from Wesley Woods center of Emory University, the 2003 Woman of Achievement award from Young Women’s Christian Association.
“I will always believe that our gifts, our talents, and our best efforts are for sharing with other, wherever there is need,” said Fuqua during her YWCA acceptance speech.
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