TAFP past president, pioneer dies at 85

Harold Rutledge High, M.D. | May 20, 1924 - March 25, 2010

Harold High, M.D., TAFP past president and member of the TAFP Foundation Board of Trustees, passed away Thursday, March 25, 2010 in Victoria, Texas. After serving in the United States Army Air Force during World War II, High attended the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and began his career as a physician in 1954. While attending medical school he married Paula Jane Grubb and they moved to Cuero in 1955.

“The Texas Academy of Family Physicians lost a great leader and a loyal soldier with the passing of Harold R. High, M.D.,” says Jim White, longtime TAFP executive director. “I lost a dear friend and a mentor.” White met High when he worked for the Texas Medical Association and credits High with recruiting him to the Academy. White knew nothing about TAFP at the time, but his trust in High encouraged him to take the job. “It was clearly the best career decision I ever made,” he says.

High served the Academy at both the state and national levels, on numerous TAFP and AAFP committees and commissions, and as TAFP’s alternate delegate and delegate to the AAFP Congress of Delegates. He was named TAFP’s Texas Family Physician of the Year in 1996.

High was also a member of the American Medical Association, Texas Medical Association, DeWitt Medical Foundation, Inter-County Clinical Society, DeWitt-Lavaca Medical Society, Cuero Industrial Foundation, the Rural Community Health System, and was a CISD School Board Trustee and past president. He was also a lifetime member of First Baptist Church, Cuero, and a member of the Masonic Lodge since 1943.

He is survived by his wife of 62 years; daughter, Karon High; son, Harold R. ‘Ace’ High, II and wife, Karen; granddaughter, Renice High Dozier and husband, Nelson; and grandson, H. Rutledge High, III.