To Be Rather Than to Seem

Posted on March 13, 2017

North Carolina’s state motto well describes generations of North Carolinians. It especially captures the exemplary life of service and leadership provided by Anne Wilmoth Cates ’53.

Anne Wilmoth came to Chapel Hill from Winston-Salem in 1949, and she has never left. A member of the Dialectic Society and Delta Delta Delta, she met her husband, John Allen Cates ’53 (’54 LLB), at Carolina. Their daughters, Catherine and Ginny ’77, were born in Chapel Hill and grew up on Tenney Circle, within easy walking distance of Franklin Street. They, too, have always been Tar Heels.

Anne Cates’ many interests and passions are varied, but outside of her family, it is clear there is nothing to which she is more devoted than her alma mater. She remains the only woman to chair the Board of Trustees, on which she served the maximum two four-year terms.

As the assistant treasurer of the Educational Foundation for more than a dozen years, she worked closely with generous Rams Club supporters, including Maurice Koury ’48, John Pope ’47 and Walter R. Davis. She is the only woman to chair the board of the Rams Club. She chaired the GAA’s Board of Directors and served for many years as its assistant treasurer. She served one term as a member of the UNC System’s Board of Governors. And she has chaired the board of visitors of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

When her close friend and former longtime GAA treasurer George Watts Hill ’22 made a $3.5 million challenge gift to fund the construction of the Alumni Center that now bears his name, Anne and John Allen were early naming donors. (The Cates Lobby on the third floor is a popular destination.) But Anne Cates didn’t just make a generous gift; she became an engaged member of the center’s design committee, and she encouraged others to make generous gifts. She helped plan The Carolina Club and was its first chair. And when the Alumni Center opened in spring 1993, many concluded that Anne Cates was a member of the housekeeping staff: She regularly came to the building with her pail of cleaning materials and personally “touched up” anything she thought the regular housekeepers might have missed. When The Carolina Club became the University’s first faculty, staff and alumni dining club, Anne Cates didn’t just preside over board meetings as its first board chair; she became and remains the club’s most enthusiastic ambassador.

When new chancellors and UNC System presidents have arrived in Chapel Hill, Anne Cates has been among the first to reach out to welcome them, and she has routinely purchased each a membership in The Carolina Club.

When the Bicentennial Campaign kickoff was conceived, all agreed that the person to lead the planning for the spectacular kickoff dinner on the floor of the Dean E. Smith Center had to be Anne Cates. And she didn’t disappoint. A replica of the Old Well dominated the stage, and the centerpieces were Old Well birdhouses. The toppings on the desserts were chocolates with the University seal on the top — shipped from Greece. Charles Kuralt ’55 narrated the program, which included separate choirs of Carolina students and a chorus composed of schoolchildren from across North Carolina. Chapel Hill native James Taylor concluded the special evening singing Carolina In My Mind, with only his guitar to accompany him.

When the UNC Board of Visitors established a task force to examine undergraduate admissions, because all knew that she would insist on asking hard questions and doing a thorough job, Anne Cates was asked to chair the task force. When the University was bequeathed the estate of Valinda Hill and D. St. Pierre “Pete” DuBose ’21, because of her extraordinary good taste and personal relationships with the Hill, DuBose and Kenan families, Anne Cates was asked to work with Tom Kenan ’59 and a few others to determine the best use of one of the South’s finest mansions. The DuBose house became the centerpiece for the Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Rizzo Center.

Beyond our University, Anne Cates also was among those who led a successful grassroots effort to get the state of North Carolina to require insurance companies to pay for mammograms for women over the age of 50. She personally visited the leaders of Blue Cross Blue Shield and later NationsBank leader Hugh McColl ’57. At the time of her visit, NationsBank’s insurance did not include mammogram coverage, and Anne Cates didn’t leave McColl’s office until he pledged to change the bank’s plan and to support the grassroots campaign before the N.C. General Assembly.

Generous, hard-working, caring, persistent, plainspoken, enthusiastic, smart, tasteful, authentic, curious, thoughtful, passionate and honest — these are among the adjectives most frequently used to describe Anne Wilmoth Cates. She has earned the respect and appreciation of all who have had the privilege and joy of working with her. She is forever a Tar Heel.

Yours at Carolina,

 

 

 

Douglas S. Dibbert ’70

doug_dibbert@unc.edu