B ray thompson biography

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WHEN B. Ray Thompson, a former coal miner, arrived here in 1941, he was so poor he could barely keep his two sons in shoes that fit.

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Prof. Zhang was named as B. Ray Thompson Professor

In recognition of outstanding research and scholarship as Professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering (MABE), Prof. Zhang was awarded a B. Ray Thompson Professorship. We like to extend our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to our esteemed Thompson Family for their invaluable support.

B. Ray Thompson [1906-1987] was born in Scott County, Tennessee as a son of a sawmill operator in Elgin. He worked in the coal industry throughout his career, starting off quite poor and working his way from the bottom all the way up to president of the Garland Coal Company. He left the firm to form his own companies, collectively known as Elk River Resources, and owned mines and timber operations in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. He developed an emission-free coke oven. By the time he sold Elk River to the Sun Corporation in the late 1970’s he had made a fortune, which he spent the rest of his life giving away to causes of particular importance to his family, many of whom attended UT. Notable recipients o

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B. Ray Thompson was born in Scott County, Tennessee, the son of a sawmill operator in Elgin. After finishing school, he worked briefly for his father before joining the Garland Coal Company as a salesman. He worked his way up to president of the firm and then left to form his own companies, which eventually were known collectively as Elk River Resources. He owned mines and timber operations in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. Thompson made a vast fortune in coal mining and with his development of an emission-free coke oven. He sold Elk River in the late 1970s to the Sun Corporation for $300 million.

He was a staunch benefactor of many academic programs at UT but is best known as the “Thompson” of Thompson-Boling Arena. He gave $5 million for the arena’s construction in 1982 and agreed to have his name on the facility only if Edward J. Boling, then president of UT, would add his. He also gave $30 million to initiate the Thompson Cancer Survival Center, as a tribute to his second wife, Mary Louise Moore, who died of cancer in 1953. He died of cancer in October 1987 at the age of

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The Thompson Family

In 1941, B.R. Thompson Sr. moved from Oneida, Tennessee to Knoxville with a new wife, two young sons, no job, and only two dollars in his pocket. Thompson was born in Elgin, a small community in upper East Tennessee known for its lumber production and hard-working people. A widower after the birth of his second son, Thompson worked in Elgin as a lumberman, alongside his father, who operated the sawmill. He worked hard to provide for his young family a two-year-old boy named B. Ray and a newborn son named Jack.

After the family resettled in Knoxville, Thompson’s second wife succumbed to lung cancer in 1953. By 1961, B.R. Sr. had a new career as a coal salesman. He and his sons became the owners and operators of Jewell Smokeless Coke (a coal by-product) and Shamrock Coal companies, with mines, processing plants, and coke ovens in Kentucky (Laurel and Clay Counties), as well as in Virginia (Buchanan County).

Jewell Smokeless and Shamrock Coal became one of the nation’s largest privately owned coal and coke companies. Renamed Elk River Resources, its co