Biography;

Physician; medical school administrator.  Born– February 20, 1925, in Madison, Florida.  Parents– Wilmer Jesse Coggins and Audrey Walker Collins.  Married– Deborah Ferne Reed, April 16, 1949.  Children–five.  Education– Georgia Military Academy; Duke University, M.D., 1951; internship at Georgetown University Medical Center, 1951-52. residency in internal medicine, University of Florida, 1960-62.  Military service, World War II.  Private practice in Boca Grande and Madison, FL, 1954-1960; faculty member and administrator at the University of Florida, 1962-1980; Dean of the College of Community Health Sciences, University of Alabama, 1980-91. Served as a consultant to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Active in the Florida Medical Association and the American College Health Association (president, 1972-73).  Awarded the Ruth Boynton Award for distinguished service by the American College Health Association.  Designated a Laureate of American College of Physicians, Alabama Chapter.  Awarded the status of dean emeritus on his retirement from the College of Community Health Sciences in 1991. Died September 9, 2012.

Sources; 

Downey-Anderson, Charlotte, “The ‘Coggins Affair’:  Desegregation and Southern Mores in Madison County, Florida,” Florida Historical Quarterly, 59 (1980), 464-72.

Marquis Who’s Who online.

Obituary, Tuscaloosa News, 12 September 2012.

Publications;

The Coggins Affair.  2005

Joint publications;

A Special Kind of Doctor:  The History of the College of Community  Health Sciences.  Tuscaloosa, AL:  College of Community Health Sciences, 2004.