Part-time Sun Valley residents Julia and George Argyros gave a late Christmas present Wednesday to the St. Luke's Wood River Foundation. Their gift was a $1 million endowment that foundation board of directors President Martha Reed called "transformational."
The foundation supports St. Luke's Wood River Medical Center, south of Ketchum.
"This year, in collaboration with the hospital, the foundation started to build an endowment, earnings from which will significantly impact the hospital's ability to continue staffing its emergency department exclusively with board-certified emergency medicine physicians who are specially trained," Reed stated in a news release from the hospital.
Hilary Furlong, executive director of St. Luke's Wood River Foundation, said in an interview that the endowment's earnings will allow the hospital to continue to fund its current level of emergency services.
The ER physicians are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, something that is rare for a hospital the size of St. Luke's. In fact, according to the news release, it is the only hospital of its size in Idaho able to provide its level of emergency care.
"We are truly honored to make the initial gift to this exceptionally important endowment fund," George Argyros said in the news release. "It is so critical to invest in the future of emergency services for our community. Not just for ourselves, but really for our children and grandchildren who spend so much time with us here. And, of course, for this community that we dearly love."
The couple has three children and six grandchildren. Chairman and CEO of Arnel & Affiliates, a real estate holding company in Southern California, George Argyros is former ambassador to Spain, and owner of the Seattle Mariners baseball team.
Among other major contributions, in 2005 the Argyroses set up half of a $10 million college scholarship program specifically targeted to U.S. military veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Also in 2005, Argyros received the Norman Vincent Peale Award given by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, an organization for which he had once served as president and chairman.
Julia and George Argyros tour the emergency room at St. Luke?s Wood River Medical Center after presenting a donation to the St. Luke?s Wood River Foundation.
Photo by Willy Cook
