William A. Shands

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William A. Shands

Born	July 21, 1889 Alachua County, Florida
Died	January, 1973 Gainesville, Florida
Education	University of Florida
Occupation	State Senator
Spouse	Kathryn Hawkins

William Augustine Shands was born July 21, 1889 in Alachua County, Florida. His family moved to Gainesville, Florida in 1901 when the town was still small and rural. Shands attended the University of Florida and joined the Kappa Alpha Order. He played football for the university in 1908, the third year of the team's existence. He was also on the baseball team. Shands left school before graduating and began selling agricultural chemicals for the Standard Fertilizer Company^[1] in Gainesville. He married Kathryn Hawkins in 1912 and they moved to Alabama, just in time for the 1914 Stock Market Crash and depression. Like most everyone else, he did whatever he could to make ends meet, eventually returning to Gainesville and founding the Gainesville Poster-Advertising Company. Through his successful business, he met most of the prominent people in the area, and decided to try politics. He ran and was elected to the Gainesville City Council. He joined the Committee Charter Commission and was appointed to the Road Board. Shands had always regretted leaving UF before graduating, so to help further his business and political aspirations, he returned to school to study law. After graduating, Shands was elected to the Florida Senate, representing the 32nd District. He was convinced that the best way to enhance the Gainesville community was to establish a hospital at the University of Florida. His dedicated efforts were critical to obtaining state funding for a teaching hospital in Gainesville, rather than a larger city. The University of Florida College of Medicine and Nursing opened in 1956. Two years later, the UF Teaching Hospital was started, on October 20, 1958. In 1965, it was renamed W. A. Shands Teaching Hospital and Clinics in honor of the man who did so much to make the facility a reality. This institution would later become Shands Hospital, part of the Shands HealthCare network.^[2]