In the early 1950s, a little brown dog named Charlie Bray—a treasured member of the Toombs Lewis family—was brought to the newly constructed veterinary hospital after being struck by a car.

According to Toombs Lewis Jr., who owned the dog when he was six or seven years old, the dog was hit by a car in front of their home in Greensboro. The family decided to take him to the new veterinary hospital in Athens which was just getting ready to open its doors.

Before moving to Greensboro, the Lewis family had lived on Ag Hill in Athens while Lewis's father was finishing a degree in forestry at UGA. This gave them an opportunity to watch the new veterinary school being built.

Up until the School of Veterinary Medicine's new building was completed in the early 50s, SVM students and faculty were accustomed teaching, learning, and seeing patients anywhere there was space to.

When Lewis's mother and grandmother arrived at the hospital with Charlie Bray, they saw the staff unpacking large numbers of boxes with supplies. The reason soon became clear: the young veterinarian who welcomed them informed them that the injured pet was the new teaching hospital's first official patient.

Charlie Bray remained in the hospital for six weeks, recovering from multiple fractures of the forelimbs and various other injuries. When the Lewis family came to take their dog home, they were told no payment was expected. "They never charged us a penny," Lewis says.

Lewis went on to graduate from the University of South Carolina, but many members of his family have ties to UGA, including his son, Robert Toombs Lewis, who graduated with his DVM from UGA CVM in 2004.