Although the Texas Legislature had authorized the establishment of a Texas Tech Pharmacy School in Amarillo many years previously, state funding for such a program had never been appropriated. In 1994, community leaders in Amarillo sought to raise sufficient funds to construct a pharmacy school, relying entirely on money raised locally. The Amarillo EDC took a lead role by providing a $6 million grant for the project, and the Amarillo Hospital District contributed $4 million to the effort. Over $2 million of additional funding was raised, primarily from private donors. Total funding was sufficient to design, engineer, construct and furnish the new state-of-the-art Texas Tech School of Pharmacy, with enough remaining money left over to fund substantial scholarship endowments.
