1956 Cone

Bonnie Cone accepting the Charlotte Woman of the Year award

Newspaper announcement of Cone as Woman of the Year

First page of Bonnie Cone's nomination (top)

First page of Bonnie Cone's nomination (bottom)

Second page of Bonnie Cone's nomination (top)

Second page of Bonnie Cone's nomination (bottom)

Born in Lodge, South Carolina, Bonnie Cone knew from a young age that her passion as teaching. Cone graduated from Coker College in 1928 with bachelor’s of science in mathematics spent the next twelve years teaching in South Carolina public schools. By 1941 she had earned a master of arts in mathematics from Duke University and chose to relocate to Charlotte to teach mathematics at Central High School. After two years she returned to Duke University to serve as a statistician in a United States Naval Ordnance Laboratory.

Returning to Central High School in 1946, she continued as a high school mathematics teacher. The school’s principal, Dr. Elmer H. Garinger, recognized Cone’s potential and asked her to become a part-time instructor at the new Charlotte Center of the University of North Carolina system which operated at Central High. While there she taught mathematics to students who were seeking degrees in engineering. By August 1947, Garinger requested that Cone become the Director of the Charlotte Center, which Cone anticipated would be a temporary position, as she had only trained to be a high school teacher.

By 1949, Cone found a cause to fight for: the Charlotte Center was at risk for closure, and Cone lobbied to keep the school open for those students who otherwise never would have attended college. In that year she petitioned and convinced the North Carolina General Assembly to keep the Charlotte Center open as a two-year college. Partially through Cone’s strenuous efforts, by 1961 the school had its own campus, by 1963 Charlotte College was recognized as a four-year institution, and in 1965 the college was renamed the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with full state support.

Although WBT threatened to discontinue the Woman of the Year program merely a year after its inception, it is lucky that the radio station reconsidered in 1956 and nominated Bonnie Cone, one of the most influential figures in Charlotte education during the twentieth century. Her contributions--to Central High School and predominantly to the formation and continuation of a college in Charlotte--are invaluable.