Dr. Dragi Jovanovski, a retired pathologist and supporter of the opera and classical music, died July 19 from renal failure at Good Samaritan Hospital. He was 88.
Dr. Jovanovski, the son of a lawyer and a homemaker, was born in Kunovo, Yugoslavia, and raised in Gostivar, Macedonia.
After graduating from the state high school in Tetovo, Macedonia, he attended the medical school of the University of Sofia in Bulgaria from 1942 to 1944.
His medical studies were interrupted by World War II, when he joined the partisans who fought the Nazi occupation of Serbia.
After the war, he received a scholarship from the French government and earned his medical degree in 1954 from the University of Paris School of Medicine.
Dr. Jovanovski, whose specialty was pathology, left Paris in 1955 and moved to California, where he completed a residency in pathology.
He joined the medical staff of Bon Secours Hospital in 1957. He later served as head of pathology at Church Home Hospital and on the staff of North Arundel Hospital before entering private practice.
Dr. Jovanovski maintained a private pathology practice in Cross Keys from 1975 to 1991, when he retired.
Dr. Jovanovski, who lived at Harper House in Cross Keys, was an art collector and an avid supporter of classical music and opera.
He attended international music festivals and had been a friend of opera diva Rosa Ponselle. He was a longtime member of the board of the old Baltimore Opera Company, of which he was a major sponsor.
For 25 years, he had been a jury member of the Baltimore Opera Competition for young opera singers and a donor of many prize awards.
A gourmet cook, Dr. Jovanovski was a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.
Services were private.
Surviving are three nephews and a niece.