Harold Alfond, 93; shoe firm founder donated millions to Maine school

Harold Alfond, 93, founder of the Dexter shoe business and a philanthropist who donated tens of millions of dollars, died Friday of prostate cancer at a family home in Belgrade Lakes, Maine.

Alfond, whose main place of residence was Palm Beach, Fla., was in Maine to be treated for cancer at the time of his death.

A native of Swampscott, Mass., Alfond started Dexter Shoe in 1958 after buying an old woolen mill in the town of Dexter. At its peak, the company manufactured 7.5 million pairs of shoes annually. It thrived by offering a high-quality shoe for a reasonable price, but gradually foreign competition affected business.

In 1993, Berkshire-Hathaway Inc. agreed to buy Dexter Shoe for stock worth about $420 million, but Alfond continued to run the company until 2001, when it was merged with the HH Brown Shoe Co., another Berkshire-Hathaway property. In reporting his death, the New York Times said the Alfond family still holds most of its Berkshire shares, with an estimated value today of $3 billion.

Alfond shared his wealth from the Dexter Shoe Co. with the University of Maine, to which he gave more than $8 million, and other causes, including college and community athletic centers, and a cancer treatment center in Augusta, Maine, that bears his name.

The Rev. Wayne Dehoney, who was president of the Southern Baptist Convention for two terms in the 1960s, died Thursday in Louisville, Ky. He was 89.