Kazım Yılmaz

Born on 20 March 1930 in Denizli, the businessman Kazım Yılmaz devoted the wealth he had earned in construction and tourism to education in Datça, where he had settled. After the Kazım Yılmaz Primary School he built in 1995, he gave the district the Özcan Yılmaz Tourism Vocational High School (named for his wife), the Yılmazlar Primary School, the Reşadiye Kazım Yılmaz Primary School and the Datça Kazım Yılmaz Vocational College of Muğla University; the people named him "Okul Dede" — Grandpa Schools. He was honoured with the Turkish Grand National Assembly's Distinguished Service Award. He died in 2014 at the age of 84 and, as he had wished, was buried in Datça.

A large share of the children studying in Datça today sit in classrooms he built; by decision of the Municipal Council his statue stands before one of his schools. He is remembered as proof that in a district where public investment ran thin, a single person could start an education campaign.