A public campaign to partially fund a $35 million expansion at Lawrence Memorial Hospital is off to a strong start with $3.2 million in donations.

LMH leaders announced at a formal kickoff celebration Thursday at Alvamar Country Club that the fundraising effort is on track toward an $8 million goal.

“I’ve been stunned by the generosity of this community,” said Connie Sollars, president of the LMH Endowment Assn.

Gene Meyer, president and chief executive officer of the hospital, detailed previously announced plans to undertake the largest expansion in the hospital’s history. Among the improvements planned:

¢ A relocation and enlargement of the hospital’s emergency department. The department will move to the east side of the building and will be on the bottom floor of a new three-story addition that will be near where the circle driveway of the hospital is today.

¢ A conversion of all the hospital’s patient rooms into fully private rooms;

¢ Improvements to the hospital’s intensive care unit;

Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, center, and her husband, Dr. Mark Praeger, talk with Kathy Clausing-Willis, vice president and chief development officer of the Lawrence Memorial Hospital Endowment Assn. in this 2005 photo. The trio attended a meeting where LMH announced that .2 million had been raised toward an million public fundraising goal.

¢ A rebuilding of the hospital’s operating rooms;

¢ The addition of six to seven new birthing rooms in the hospital’s obstetrics department.

“It is an aggressive but totally patient-oriented expansion plan,” Meyer said. “Every dollar we invest in the facility will be towards patient care.”

The hospital also publicly recognized three donors who have already made major contributions to the fundraising drive. The family of Pamela and Dolph C. Simons Jr. announced a $1 million contribution; Marianna and Ross Beach announced a $500,000 gift; and Tensie Oldfather also announced a $500,000 gift.

“Good health care, in my opinion, is an essential ingredient of any city of any size if it wants to reach its potential,” said Dolph C. Simons Jr., who is chairman of The World Company, which publishes the Lawrence Journal-World. “The residents of Lawrence must do what they can to make this drive a success.”

The Beach family are owners of the Douglas County Bank and have built successful businesses in the oil, gas, ranching and broadcast industries. Oldfather is a longtime Lawrence philanthropist. All three groups were named as honorary chairs of the fundraising drive.

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Beverly Smith Billings, president of Alvamar Inc., and Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger and her husband, Dr. Mark Praeger, were named as the general campaign chairs for the effort.

Billings said she agreed to chair the campaign, in part because the hospital was important to her late husband, Alvamar founder Bob Billings.

“It was one small way that I could carry on his legacy,” Billings said. “But the other reason is that our hospital touches virtually everyone in this community.”

The fundraising drive is expected to last through the spring. Meyer said the hospital expansion would be a multiyear project.