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Faithful supporter, adviser Stiles Harper dies at 92 MUSC lost one its most faithful friends in the death last month of Stiles Mikell Harper, 92. Mr. Harper was a founding member of MUSC’s Storm Eye Institute Advisory Board and its chairman from 1976 until 1999. He was an emeritus member of the board of directors of the Health Science Foundation, and with his late wife, Virginia Lawton Harper, was a major contributor of MUSC’s Harper Student Center. “Stiles Harper was a friend of the university in every sense of the word,” said MUSC President Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D. “He was deeply interested in supporting our students and the Harper Student Center will be a lasting legacy to that commitment. He also shared our desire to make the Medical University a premier clinical and research institution. He was a valued adviser and a loyal supporter. We will miss him very much.” To Bill Hewitt, pastchairman of MUSC’s Health Sciences Foundation board of directors, “Stiles had three characteristics that most come to mind. He was a gentleman in every sense of the word. He was a philanthropist, and he was a visionary. I think certainly, along with Virginia, there is a clear indication of the last two coming together for MUSC.” Mr. Harper, who died Feb. 10, was born in Estill, Jan. 8, 1910, a son of the late Charles Andrew and Margaret Mikell Harper Sr. He was a lifelong member of Lawtonville Baptist Church where he served as deacon. Mr. Harper graduated from Estill High School and attended the University of South Carolina in Columbia. A pioneer in soybean processing in South Carolina, he was the co-founder and president of Harper and Bowers Inc. and Southern Soya Corporation, the first solvent soybean processing mill in S.C., from 1947 to 1976. He served as director of the National Soybean Processors Association from 1962 to 1983. An early proponent of pine tree farming in the Southeast, Mr. Harper was named South Carolina Pine Tree Farmer of the Year in 1977. He served on the board of directors of the South Carolina Forestry Association from 1984 until 1988. Mr. Harper has been a member of the board of trustees of the Baptist Healthcare System of South Carolina since 1984. In 1996 he was presented with the Distinguished Hospital Association Trustee Award by the South Carolina Hospital Association. In 1998 he was awarded South Carolina’s highest honor, the Order of the Palmetto.