El Paso car salesman Steve Fox claimed he negotiated the deal of his life when he was diagnosed with severe tongue and throat cancer more than 20 years ago. Steve Fox, owner and CEO of the Fox Toyota, Lexus, and Acura car shops in El Paso, said: “I made a vow that if God permitted me to survive, I would spend the rest of my life helping others who followed me with cancer.”
Currently, he’s making a significant contribution to that commitment, donating $25 million to Texas Tech University to help staff a planned cancer treatment facility in El Paso. Furthermore, the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso will use $65 million that the Texas Legislature recently granted to construct the building, which will be known as the Steve and Nancy Fox Cancer Center.
The donation was announced On August 8 during a festive ceremony attended by more than 200 people. Which included many of El Paso’s top businesses. Government and health care leaders in the auditorium of a new building on the Texas Tech campus in south central El Paso. According to Texas Tech experts, cancer is the leading cause of death for the Hispanic community in the U.S. Additionally, in El Paso County in 2020, cancer was the predominant cause of death.
Establishing a comprehensive cancer treatment facility will enable better patient outcomes by offering care that is now unavailable in this area. Additionally, it will allow more El Paso region individuals to receive many types of cancer treatments at home rather than needing to travel. Fox says traveling for cancer treatments outside of town is physically and mentally taxing, making the battle against cancer more challenging.
Texas Tech has received donations from other El Paso businessmen besides Fox. To illustrate, real estate developer Woody Hunt contributed $25 million in 2016 for a dental school; banker Rick Francis contributed $10 million to the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 2022; and billionaire Paul Foster contributed $50 million in 2007 to help establish the Texas Tech medical school in El Paso.
The 90,000-square-foot facility is projected to begin next summer, possibly opening in the next two to three years.
