DR. GEORGE BOONE (1923–2008)

Dr. George Boone, an orthodontist-turned–real estate developer and leading Southern California philanthropist, has died. Valerie Nelson notes in the Los Angeles Times that the Boone name can be found on buildings and programs throughout the state dedicated to education and the arts. In 2000, the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery at the Huntington Library opened in a carriage house that was converted into a venue for temporary exhibitions after the Boones donated $3.6 million. At Pasadena City College, which Boone had attended, the Boone Sculpture Garden was completed in 1999 in the heart of the campus. The garden was named for his parents, George and Fern Boone, who raised him in Pasadena. The couple made their first major donation, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in 1983. That was the year they founded the Boone Family Foundation, which is now run by Nick Boone, one of their three children. When LACMA was named one of the top ten art museums in the country for children in a 2006 survey by Child magazine, “a large part of the credit for that was due to George’s vision” for the interactive Boone Children’s Gallery, said Jane Burrell, LACMA’s vice president for education and public programs. “He was extraordinary.”