Donald Eugene Warren (1927-2014) was born in Miami and raised in Lakeland. He attended Washington and Lee University and Duke University Medical School, and completed a cardiology fellowship at Emory University Hospital in 1956 when he started a practice in West Palm Beach and married Betty Anne “Bebe” Welch (1927-2018); he retired forty years later.
When the Rev. Jess Moody asked him in 1963 to help establish a Christian college in West Palm Beach, Warren became its primary fundraiser by approaching his wealthy patients, including Marshall Rinker, Theodore Johnson, and John D. MacArthur. Donald and Bebe Warren helped wherever needed from the start of Palm Beach Atlantic College, now Palm Beach Atlantic University (PBAU). Warren had given more than 1,000 campus tours by 2006 when he retired as the founding president of the board of trustees; he remained a trustee for life.
Warren was the founding president of the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties and served on the boards of St. Mary’s and Good Samaritan medical centers. In 1999 he was named one of The Palm Beach Post’s “100 People Who Changed the Way We Live” and Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser by the National Society of Fundraising Executives. Bebe Warren chaired the Women of Distinction luncheon annually for PBAU, which established a Bebe Warren Scholarship Fund in 1999. The Warrens refused to have buildings named for them until 2007 when PBAU dedicated the new Warren Library to them. Many people have said, “Without Don Warren, there would be no Palm Beach Atlantic.”