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General Note

Thomas F. Fleming, Jr. was the State campaign chairman (left) with U.S. Representative Claude Pepper.

Biographical Note

Thomas Farrar Fleming, Jr. was born in Sparta, Georgia in 1916. He graduated in 1938 from the University of Florida, and received his Masters degree from Harvard Business School, after which he moved to Boca Raton in 1940. Fleming was founder and president of First Bank and Trust (now NationsBank), Boca Raton's first permanent bank. Under his guidance, the bank pledged one percent of its profits, before taxes, to higher education in Florida. He campaigned throughout the state for a constitutional amendment allowing a $75 million bond issue to improve higher education. He also campaigned for a state university in Boca Raton. The amendment passed in November 1963, and President John F. Kennedy devoted one of his last speeches to praising Fleming's work. Florida Atlantic University opened in 1964. The Thomas F. Fleming, Jr. Memorial Scholarship was established by Florida Atlantic's Board of Directors, and The College of Business building, Fleming Hall, is named in his honor. Thomas Fleming died in 1976.