Contributions of Ruby Carter live on in many ways

By Audrey Stanton

Ruby Webb Anderson Carter’s generosity and concern reached even beyond that of the Carter Family Foundation.

The longtime Beckley resident died Sunday at a Huntington hospital following a short illness. But her contributions to the community, education and children live on in the form of scholarships, buildings and countless acts of kindness.

“I think that in later years, after her husband died, she became more identified with the Carter Family Foundation, but she was a special lady in her own right if she had never been affiliated with that,” said Susan Landis, director of the Beckley Area Foundation and a friend.

“As Ruby Anderson, she had a huge impact on so many students. I’ve heard many people talk about what a wonderful teacher she was. ... She loved teaching.”

Carter carried that commitment to education with her through life and certainly when she married the late Raleigh County banker Leslie R. Carter, who formed the Carter Family Foundation in 1981. Its mission: to support educational, religious and human service organizations.

Only a few years ago, as the last Carter family member on the foundation’s board, she played a key role in granting a $1 million gift to Concord University to fund and improve teacher education programs.

She once said: “The Carter Family Foundation was founded on the basis of providing opportunities for the citizens of our area, and the philosophy has been manifested in a variety of ways, including scholarships for hundreds of capable students and aid to our colleges. We all know that better educated teachers result in better educated students.”

Carter learned the importance of education at an early age, from parents who taught her that a lifetime of learning could make a difference for everyone. She graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, Concord College in 1941, and went on to receive her master’s degree from West Virginia University. She began her 41-year teaching career at Institute School in Raleigh County as a first-grade teacher in a day when classrooms had 50 or more students and no teachers’ aides.

Even after retirement, she continued her commitment to education by serving as a volunteer librarian at First Baptist Church for 14 years.

Appalachian Bible College and Mountain State University also considered her a friend — not only because of the Carter Family Foundation’s contributions to their organizations, but because it was evident to them that she truly cared.

“As an emeritus trustee and dear friend of Mountain State University, Mrs. Carter’s support throughout the years has been invaluable,” MSU President Charles Polk said. “Her contributions and those of the Carter Family Foundation have given us Carter Hall, the Margaret A. Carter Auditorium, many scholarships for our students and support for several wonderfully beneficial projects. She was a remarkable woman who will be dearly missed.”

Yet in her own heart and mind, Carter considered herself nothing more than a retired school teacher.

Friend and fellow foundation board member Doug Ernest, president of United Bank, said Carter seemed to never understand why various organizations — such as the West Virginia Education Alliance, the Irvin Stuart Society of West Virginia University and Gov. Cecil Underwood, who named her a Distinguished West Virginian in 1999 — wanted to give her special recognition.

“She never wanted the spotlight on her,” Ernest said. “She just wanted to make a positive impact on people.”

For Carter, caring about education and the youth of the area just came naturally, Ernest said.

“I considered her a friend and a wonderful lady,” he said. “We’ve lost a truly wonderful and caring lady, and she’ll be missed.”

Landis called Carter a lady in the truest sense of the word.

“She was the epitome of what young women might aspire to be described as,” Landis said. “She was the epitome of a lady.”

She was also a loving caregiver, having cared for her ailing husband through the final years of his life, and then taking on the burden of having discretionary charitable wealth when he could no longer carry out those duties.

“She looked at it as an opportunity, a challenge and a responsibility to her husband to fulfill his charitable intent and executed it as he would have liked it to have been,” Landis said.

In that role, Mrs. Carter was instrumental in gifting millions of dollars not only to local educational institutions, but to the arts, to community events such as an annual Labor Day concert, to the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine, the Beckley-Raleigh County YMCA, to countless students who benefited from the foundation’s scholarships, to numerous charities such as Habitat for Humanity and the United Way, and many more.

“I miss her already,” Landis said. “She was so gracious.”

Service for Mrs. Carter is planned for a week from today.

— E-mail:

bnaudrey@register-herald.com