Dr. Alfonso D. Holliday II died Jan. 19, 2007 after a two-year battle with leukemia. Along with his service with the Gary School Board, Holliday was an area surgeon and a pioneer in the field of addiction medicine. He was 75.
He served at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis before returning to his hometown of Gary in 1962, when he opened his first practice in an insurance building with his first wife, Andrea. In 1966, he founded the Medical Center of Gary at 22nd Avenue and Grant Street. He left the practice in 1980 but continued to work as an advocate of health care.
Holliday was president and medical director of Holliday Health Care in Miller and was a nationally recognized surveyor for the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care in Wilmette, Ill. He was a U.S. Air Force veteran who served as chief of surgery and chief of medical staff at Larson Air Force Base in Washington.
Family spokesperson DeLia McClam said Holliday was the longest-serving Gary School Board president. He was a 1949 Froebel High School graduate and one of the first black Indiana University Medical School surgical graduates.
He is survived by his second wife, Iris, three daughters, Kathy Davis, Toni Ames and Dawn Mack, three sons, Leroy B. Holliday Sr., Alfonso D. Holliday III and Ronald L. Flack, and special daughter McClam. Holliday’s brother, Stanley Holliday, also survives, along with 16 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.