User:Wikfr/Kenneth True Norris Jr

Kenneth True Norris Jr. was a University of Southern California graduate, Air Force veteran, actor, industrialist, and philanthropist who lived in Huntington Beach, California.

Education
Norris attended Stanford University until he lost sight in one eye while boxing. After taking some time off, he transfered to University of Southern California (USC) in 1952, where he received a B.S. in industrial management in 1953.

Activities
Throughout his life, Norris was inquisitive and had a wide range on interests. As a boy, he developed a fascination with the stars, leading to in interest in astronomy.

Norris served as a fighter-interceptor controller with the Air Force in Germany from 1954 to 1956.

Norris Foundation
Norris became the primary benefactor of the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation when he sold Norris industries in 1981 and donated most of the proceeds to the foundation.

His parents, Ken senion and Eileen, established the foundation as a charitable trust based in Long Beach, California in 1963. Ken Norris senior died in 1972 and Eileen died in 1988.

The Norris Foundation supports programs that advance better health and intellectual enlightenment, through education, cultivation of the arts, individual responsibility, freedom and dignity.

Norris's son Dale Norris continued as a trustee until his death in 2010.

Death
On September 21, 1996, Norris fell overboard while flying a kite from his boat on Lake Arrowhead. Surfers later found his body floating on the water. Apparently he fell off the boat while having a heart attack.

junk
'52, of Huntington Beach, Calif., September 21, at 66, in a boating accident. He served as a fighter-interceptor controller with the Air Force in Germany from 1954 to 1956. After his father's death in 1972, he took over the Long Beach-based Norris Industries, serving as chair and CEO from 1975 to 1980. Among his many contributions to Southern California charities and institutions, he is best known for being the primary benefactor of the USC/Kenneth T. Norris Jr. Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital. He was a volunteer reserve sheriff's deputy and also acted in several film and television productions, most recently Frasier. He received the Asa V. Call Achievement Award, the highest honor awarded by USC alumni; the American Cancer Society's Man of the Year award; and the National Conference of Christians and Jews' humanitarian award. Survivors: his wife, Harlyne; five children, Bradley, Kimberley Presley, Dale, Jim Martin and Lisa Hansen; and eight grandchildren.

Norris served as a USC trustee from 1980 until 1985.

Kenneth T. Norris Jr. died on September 21 of a heart attack. He was 66.

Mr. Norris made possible the USC/Kenneth T. Norris Jr. Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital with a $5 million contribution from the Norris Foundation. The Norris Cancer Center Hospital opened in April 1983 as the only hospital in Southern California created exclusively for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. He contributed another $4.5 million for the Cancer Center's recent expansion.

Mr. Norris, a trustee of the university from 1980-85 and a board member of the Norris Cancer Center and Hospital, continued the tradition of philanthropy at USC started by his parents, Eileen and Kenneth True Norris, who created the Norris Medical Library at USC's Health Sciences Campus and the Eileen L. Norris Cinema Theatre and the Norris Dental Center on USC's University Park Campus. Kenneth Norris, Jr., underwrote renovation of the auditorium in USC's historic Bovard Administration Building.

He received a B.S. in industrial management from USC in 1953. From 1954-56, Norris served with the 12th Air Force in Germany. Except for his undergraduate studies and military service, he worked at Norris Industries-the company his father had founded in 1930- until the firm sold in 1981.

Both the University and the community have honored Norris for his civic involvement. He received USC's Asa V. Call Achievement award, the USC School of Business "Outstanding Achievement" Alumnus Award, and the USC School of Medicine Distinguished Service Award.

Norris is survived by his wife, Harlyne Norris, five children, and eight grandchildren.

usc Health Magazine

The Kenneth Norris, Jr. Endowed Chairs by Monika Guttman

Crowning a lifetime of generosity, Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. provided $4 million to endow two chairs, one at USC/Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Comprehensive Cancer Center and the other at the USC School of Medicine.

Brian E. Henderson, M.D., professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California School of Medicine and former director of the USC/Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been appointed to the newly established Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Chair of Cancer Prevention at the USC/Norris Cancer Center. In addition to the chair in cancer prevention, the Norris Foundation established the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Chair in Medicine.

Henderson and his wife, Judith, were present when the chair was announced by USC President Steven B. Sample, Ph.D., at the USC memorial tribute for Norris. The chair was endowed by Norris as one of his final acts as chairman of the board of the Norris Foundation. He died of a heart attack on Sept. 21.

Henderson says he is honored to have been named to the chair, adding that "I think chairs validate the model of the scientist/teacher and that's the primary role we all have in academics. The purpose of chairs, from the very beginning, was to allow us to do research, and research is one of my primary focuses at this time. Ken Norris was a valued friend and benefactor. and I am grateful to occupy this chair in his name."

USC/Norris

Obituaries : Eileen L. Norris, Philanthropist, USC Benefactor June 23, 1988 Eileen L. Norris, who with her late husband erected monuments to the arts, education and medicine, died Tuesday night at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.

The wife of Kenneth T. Norris, founder of Norris Industries, was 86.

Several examples of the Norris largess can be found at USC where the Eileen and Kenneth Norris Medical Library, the Eileen and Kenneth Norris Dental Science Center and the Eileen Norris Cinema stand.

Mrs. Norris also was a founding trustee of a charitable foundation named for her and her husband, who died in 1972; a lifetime member of the Assistance League of Southern California and a board member of the USC Town and Gown.

Services are scheduled at 1 p.m. today at the Wee Kirk of the Heather, Forest Lawn, Glendale.

Eileen L. Norris

LA Times Norris legacy

Norris history

Norris Stanford Alumni

The Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation