Tribune-Star photo/Rod Deuster

By then, though, Tony's spending spree of the 1940s, '50s and early '60s was tapering off. He spent more and more time in his office at the speedway, where a plaque proclaiming him ``America's Most Eminent Sportsman'' hung crookedly on the wall.

He and Cloutier -- who had worked at Hulman & Co. since starting as a cashier in 1926 and was Tony's administrative assistant and main idea man -- oversaw changes at the speedway: new entrances, more grandstands, more VIP suites and a golf course, a speedway museum, a motel adjacent to the speedway for Tony's friends during the month of May. They even considered a football field in the speedway.

If Tony was in Terre Haute, a check of the west side of Hulman & Co. would indicate whether he was in his second-floor office. In the early 1970s, if a navy Ford LTD was parked there, a pot of hot water probably was bubbling outside Tony's door to feed his well-known coffee habit. There was no chance his Hulman & Co. office would be anywhere else, he said, because he considered the building his grandfather, father and uncle helped design ``sort of a lucky charm piece.''

And once a business or piece of property fell into the family fold, there it would probably stay. Tony wasn't much for selling things -- a trait that would later have company- and community-wide implications.

His holdings were a lot to keep track of for a man so absentminded he would try to remember things by tying strings around his fingers and sticking notes on his tie, according to his cousin Donald E. Smith, chairman of the board and president of First Financial Corp., the state's 11th-largest bank holding corporation. Smith, 70, looked up to Tony as a mentor and shared his love of sports, particularly football.

Tony's granddaughter, Nancy Lee George, 39, of Laguna Niguel, Calif., says since he couldn't remember names, he ``always had someone follow him around to remember names - a personal friend, his doctor, Joe Cloutier.''

In the late '60s and early '70s, Tony and his family returned some of their fortune to the town where they made it. With the gifts, the family name became permanently etched on the town's landmarks, even as Tony's responsibilities at the speedway mushroomed. Perhaps the most fortunate benefactor was Rose Polytechnic Institute.

In early 1970, 96-year-old Rose, with an endowment of $4.4 million, like many private schools, was dreaming of sirloin while living on a spaghetti budget. But an $11 million gift from Tony and Mary Fendrich Hulman of the proceeds of the Hulman Foundation changed that, changed the school's name to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, changed its future and the future of its hometown as the school ascended to national prominence.

``That gift really made it possible to go from a good school to a very good school,'' said President Samuel F. Hulbert. ``It was the largest gift and still is the largest gift. That was really a dramatic turning point, a milestone...a point that began to change the whole direction of Rose-Hulman.''

In December 1970, when the Rose board met to accept the gift, it changed the name of the school to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. The gift included more than 100,000 shares of stock in various companies, including more than $5 million worth in Hulman & Co. and nearly $2 million worth in Tribune-Star Publishing Co. The gift's value is now worth $40 million of Rose-Hulman's $110 million endowment, Hulbert says.

The college -- initially the Terre Haute School of Industrial Science but renamed for Chauncey Rose, another Terre Haute success story who donated 10 acres and $100,000 -- had already received 123 acres of the Hulman farm from Anton Sr. and Herman Jr. in 1917 and other gifts from the family. Anton Sr. had been the first Hulman to join the board in 1887. Tony George joined it in 1987 and Mari Hulman George in 1989; Mary Fendrich Hulman is an emeritus member.

Tony's philanthropic efforts began decades before the Rose gift, in 1943, with a $116,000 donation for land for a city airport. The city bought 638 acres, where officials dedicated Hulman Field on Oct. 3, 1944.

In July 1967, Tony, acting as chairman of the Hulman Foundation, presented the deed to the former WTHI Radio Center at 120 S. Seventh St. to Harry P. Brentlinger, county commission president, who would use the three-story brick and concrete building for use including Board of Health offices, Area Plan Commission and Air Pollution Control of the County Board of Health.

It seemed to those who liked him that Tony just plain had a golden touch, a Midas from the Midwest with Victorian manners, a humble man from the old school who received Christmas presents from people he didn't even know.

``People would ask me, `What do you think makes him so successful?' '' his granddaughter Nancy George recalled. ``It's not that he did it all, it's that he delegated responsibility and made them feel so important and that they're doing such a good job, all the way down to the janitor. He would ask people's opinions, then he'd make a decision.

``He always made everybody feel that they were his best friend.''

In October 1969, the multimillion-dollar businessman with a fear of bugs and spiders and an enduring love of chocolate turned his philanthropic attention toward Indiana State University in a donation that reflected his love of athletics. The university accepted $2.5 million from the Hulman Foundation for the new $10 million Hulman Center; Tony tossed the first ball onto the Hulman Center court Dec. 14, 1973.

The same October, Tony had signed over 226 acres to the city for a new 18-hole municipal golf course. Last year, duffers played 30,000 rounds at Hulman Links. But Tony, an avid fan of golf in addition to his loves of deep-sea fishing and hunting, would never play the course.