Dr. and Mrs. Ralph Wilson Jr.

Whether leading a $1 million fund drive to help provide a new Temple Public Library, organizing a fund-raiser to support child care organizations or manning a broom to clean up after the event, they can be counted on to be there.

The Frank W. Mayborn Humanitarian Award is given this year to a couple who might well have won the award numerous times over the past 30 years had it been in existence.

Jean and Dr. Ralph Wilson Jr. have recorded a lifetime of humanitar-ian and civic accomplishments which make them deserving of the award many times over.

Because the rules of the Mayborn Award require that it be given for a humanitarian or civic accomplishment within the past year, the Wilsons are being honored with the sixth Frank W. Mayborn Humanitarian Award for their involvement with Temple's Saulsbury Day Care Center. But their lifetime of achievement does not go unnoticed.

Several nomination letters stressed that the opening this year of the Saulsbury Center's new building in East Temple is due in no small part to the efforts of Jean and Ralph Wilson. More than likely, it might not have opened in 1997 if not for their generosity and dedication. Indeed, some center board members said that without the new structure the future of the center itself might well have been in jeopardy.

For four decades the Saulsbury Day Care Center has served the under-privileged children of East Temple, today it does so from a building designed to meet the needs of a modern day care facility. The Wilsons gave the $150,000 needed to match a $150,000 challenge grant from the E.R. Carpenter Foundation which funded building the center's new $250,000 facility.

Jean Wilson has been a member of the Saulsbury Day Care Center board since 1972 and for many years the chair of its Finance Committee.

According to one nomination letter: ``When the need to replace the old frame house that the Center occupied became urgent, Jean led the board in conducting a low-key fund drive to raise the funds necessary for replacing the deteriorating, inadequate facility with a modern fire-resistant building designed specifically for child care. Dr. Ralph became an unpaid and unofficial member of the building committee, work-ing with architect William P. Chamlee on the design of the new facility. "During the construction, Dr. Ralph became an unofficial owner's representative. He spent many hours on the job site, working with the architect and the contractor to assure the Center's funds were being spent properly.''

Now the Center looks to the future with an expanded capability. The new facility can handle up to 74 children compared to the 49 which it was licensed to accommodate in the past.

In addition to their work on Saulsbury Day Care, the Wilsons in the past year continued their leadership roles in connection with Child Care Inc.'s annual fund-raising event, Rank Amateur Night. Jean Wilson as-sumed a leadership position during the 20th year of the event which helps fund the non-profit organization that they help found. Child Care Inc. supports child care organizations in Temple and Belton. As always Ralph Wilson was also a major contributor to Rank Amateur Night includ-ing being a member of the cast.

Also in recent years Ralph Wilson was the chairman of the Temple Library Foundation's fund-raising committee which with a goal of $1,000,000 raised $2.2 million to help relocate the city's library from the old Post Office building to the newly renovated NationsBank build-ing. This fall he is leading a mini-campaign to raise $100,000 to match a challenge grant made by the City of Temple for buying new library books and other materials.

Over the years the Wilson family, through the Ralph Wilson Trust founded by Dr. Wilson's father, Ralph Wilson Sr., have been generous contributors to numerous local projects and causes.

Perhaps the largest single beneficiary has been the Ralph Wilson Youth Club which has provided thousands of Temple area boys and girls safe, supervised after-school and summer activities.

The list of Temple and Central Texas agencies which have been im-pacted by the Wilsons' generous gifts of time, money and talent in-cludes: Temple Civic Theater, Visual Arts Friends, Friends of the Public Library, The Cultural Activities Center, The Contemporaries, Wildflower Country Club, King's Daughters Hospital and Christian Farms//Treehouse.

A dentist by profession, Dr. Wilson is also an accomplished business-man whose acumen gained many accolades for both himself and Ralph Wilson Plastics Company, the company founded by his father. He joined the firm full-time as vice president in 1960 and eventually led it as president for 18 years. In 1989 he retired as president of the Decorative Lami-nates Group of Premark International Inc., which had become the parent firm of Ralph Wilson Plastics.

A former state chairman of the Texas Association of Business and Chambers of Commerce, he serves as chairman of the board of trustees of King's Daughters Hospital, a position he has held since 1977. He is also Honorary Chairman of the Ralph Wilson Youth Clubs founded by his fa-ther.

Jean Wilson has been active in Girl Scout activities as a board member of the Bluebonnet Girl Scout Council. She is also past president of the Service League of Temple and has been on the boards of the CAC, Friends of the Temple Public Library and Temple Civic Theatre.

- - from award program Wednesday, November 10, 1997