B. Ray Thompson was born in Scott County, Tennessee, the son of a sawmill operator in Elgin. After finishing school, he worked briefly for his father before joining the Garland Coal Company as a salesman. He worked his way up to president of the firm and then left to form his own companies, which eventually were known collectively as Elk River Resources. He owned mines and timber operations in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. Thompson made a vast fortune in coal mining and with his development of an emission-free coke oven. He sold Elk River in the late 1970s to the Sun Corporation for $300 million.
He was a staunch benefactor of many academic programs at UT but is best known as the “Thompson” of Thompson-Boling Arena. He gave $5 million for the arena’s construction in 1982 and agreed to have his name on the facility only if Edward J. Boling, then president of UT, would add his. He also gave $30 million to initiate the Thompson Cancer Survival Center, as a tribute to his second wife, Mary Louise Moore, who died of cancer in 1953. He died of cancer in October 1987 at the age of 81. A substantial part of his fortune went into the Thompson Charitable Trust, which has provided funding for a variety of worthwhile projects.