Remembering Janice S. McNair, 1936–2026

In the 1950s, a young woman named Janice Suber left her hometown of Orangeburg, South Carolina, for Columbia College, a few blocks from where Bob McNair was building a reputation of his own as student body president at the University of South Carolina. Neither could have guessed that decades later, the family they built together would open doors for hundreds of Carolina students they would never personally meet.

Janice S. McNair died July 14, 2026, at the age of 89. Her husband, Bob, preceded her in death in 2018. Together, across more than half a century, they built a partnership that carried them from Columbia to Houston — and left behind one of the great philanthropic legacies in University of South Carolina history.

That legacy took formal shape in 1998, when the McNairs established the McNair Scholars Program, one of the university's most transformational scholarships for out-of-state students. Each McNair Scholar receives a full-tuition award along with enrichment funds to pursue research, travel and leadership beyond the classroom. In the years since, more than 500 students have carried the name — chosen not only for their academic records, but for their character and their instinct to serve others. The program has been part of what helped propel the university's Honors College to its ranking as the No. 1 public honors college in the country.

In 2015, the McNairs expanded their vision beyond scholarships, establishing the McNair Institute for Entrepreneurism and Free Enterprise at the University of South Carolina — one of several such centers they founded at universities across the country to give students the tools to build and grow their own ventures. It was the same instinct that had carried Bob from a Carolina classroom to founding the Houston Texans.

“You can’t go wrong by doing what is right.”
  — Robert (Bob) McNair

Faith, family and education were the throughline of Janice and Bob McNair's lives, and Columbia is where much of it started. It was a philosophy Bob McNair used to describe his approach to business and philanthropy alike — and one his wife lived out beside him for decades.

Janice McNair is survived by four children, sixteen grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren. For the University of South Carolina, she leaves behind hundreds of scholars who walked through doors she and Bob opened, and a legacy that will continue to shape Carolina students for generations to come.