The Jim Cox, Jr. Foundation has established the Betty Gage Holland Chair in Neurology in Emory University School of Medicine. Allan Levey, MD, PhD, will be the inaugural holder of the chair. Levey directs Emory’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and chairs the Department of Neurology.  

Holland, who passed away in 2004, was married for 15 years to James (Jim) M. Cox Jr., who succeeded his father as head of Cox Enterprises and presided over the company until his death in 1974.

The Jim Cox, Jr. Foundation has given to the neurosciences at Emory since 1990, when it made a $50,000-per-year commitment to the Emory School of Medicine to help fund research in that field. In March of that same year, after foundation members toured the School of Medicine neurosciences facilities, the foundation increased that commitment to $100,000 per year and has given that amount every year for 21 years. In addition to supporting the health sciences, the foundation committed $2 million in 2007 to establish a chair in Roman History at Emory, also in memory of Holland, an avid traveler and art lover.  

Holland married William Jackson Holland in 1979. Before his death in 2001, he became a patient of Levey, whom she had the opportunity to get to know during office visits with her husband.  

“Mrs. Holland always wanted to provide funding in some area of the medical field,” said Larry Hooks, trustee for the Jim Cox, Jr. Foundation. “We began giving to Emory neurosciences early on because Emory identified that as a pressing need. Mrs. Holland would be pleased to see Dr. Levey hold this chair because she had held him in high esteem”. 

Levey also has met Holland’s daughters, Bettie Gambaccini and Sallie Marcucci. They both live abroad but have continued their mother’s legacy of generous giving to Emory through their participation as Members of the Distribution Committee for the Cox Foundation.  

“I remember Mother raving about what a great doctor Allan Levey is,” said Gambaccini.  

“My husband had a horrible stroke in 1995,” said Marcucci, “and I brought him over to Emory. The therapy used for this sort of thing fascinates me. Mother was very interested in all of this too. The more we know about how our brains work the better.”