Dr. J.D. Harrah founded the cardiac surgery program at St. Mary's Hospital and was a key figure in the program for more than 20 years. Today's highly successful heart program at St. Mary's is, in a very real sense, his legacy to the hospital and to the community.

Dr. Harrah was born May 6, 1939, at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, where his father, Delvin Dae Harrah, was superintendent of schools and his mother, Mabel Harris Bauer Harrah, was a teacher. Learning was a valued commodity in the Harrah household. Enrolling at West Virginia University, young J.D. seemed headed for a career in engineering until he changed direction and decided on medicine. Engineering's loss would prove to be medicine's gain.

Graduating from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1964, he began his residency in surgery at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His residency was interrupted by two years spent with the Public Health Service as a clinical associate in surgery at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. He then returned to Hopkins and completed his residency.

He directed the Department of Surgery at Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC) and practiced in North Carolina before coming to Huntington in 1977 as Associate Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Division of Thoracic & Cardiovascular Surgery at the Marshall University School of Medicine. He would remain associated with the school for more than 30 years.

In 1978, he studied as a fellow under famed heart surgeon Dr. Denton A. Cooley at the Texas Heart Institute.

On September 27, 1979, Dr. Harrah performed the first open-heart surgery in the Tri-State Area, ushering in a new era of care for the region's patients. No longer was it necessary for people in the Huntington area to travel to Cleveland or Lexington for coronary bypass or surgery to correct defective heart valves. In the next 12 months, 100 open-heart surgeries were performed at St. Mary's, with a zero mortality rate. For the first 500 surgeries, either Dr. Harrah or his associate, Dr. Lorraine Rubis, were in the hospital with the patient 24/7.

By 1999, a total of 7,000 heart surgeries had been performed at St. Mary's, with Dr. Harrah involved in 4,000 of them – a truly remarkable record.