When a new facility dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease opens next winter on the campus of FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital, it will bear the name of a Pinehurst couple whose foresight and generosity played a major role in making the project possible.

The Board of Directors of FirstHealth of the Carolinas unanimously agreed on Nov. 17, 2009, to name the facility the Reid Heart Center in honor of Walter and Betty Reid whose multimillion-dollar contribution to the project-supporting Stepping Stones Campaign constituted the largest single gift to Moore Regional Hospital in its 80-year history.

“We are extremely grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Reid, not only for their financial generosity, but also for their contributions of time and talent to our organization,” said FirstHealth CEO Charles T. Frock. “In recognition of their generosity, we will name our state-of-the-art cardiovascular center in their honor.”

“This is a first for Moore Regional Hospital and for FirstHealth of the Carolinas,” Frock continued. “Never before, in the eight-decade history of our organization, have we recognized individuals in this manner, a fact that attests to the very high regard in which we hold this remarkable couple.”

Walter Reid III is a second-generation executive with Charms Candy Company, the New Jersey-based firm that he joined in 1934, 22 years after his father founded it as Tropical Charms. As CEO of Charms Candy, he created the classic American candy known as “Blow Pop,” the third largest-selling candy in the world.

Walter Reid became involved with Moore Regional Hospital in 1986, after Hal Stevens, his neighbor at the Country Club of North Carolina, invited him to join the Scroll Society, the Foundation of FirstHealth’s most successful annual-giving program.

He and his wife, the former Mary Elizabeth (Betty) Walters Smith, became members of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees in 2006. They have actively supported various Foundation-hosted educational programs and events, and have become active in the Camp Easter Network.

“This gift has given me as much pleasure as anything I have done,” Walter Reid said of his contribution to the Stepping Stones Campaign. “It may go into bricks and mortar, but it won’t end when the last brick is laid.”