AAUW life-time mem­ber, Alice Farmer Snead, age 80 died Feb­ru­ary 23. 2011 after a brief ill­ness. A memo­r­ial ser­vice will be held at a later date.  She received her BA degree in Eng­lish at Agnes Scott Col­lege and taught at Mur­phy High School. Later when she and her fam­ily moved to Vir­ginia, Alice taught high school Eng­lish for many years. She was known by fam­ily and friends as an accom­plished cook and gar­dener, an avid reader and an enthu­si­as­tic and insight­ful book club leader. As a pas­sion­ate advo­cate of edu­ca­tion for women, she lob­bied state leg­is­la­tors as far back as the 60’s, wear­ing a hat and short white gloves.

Alice belonged to the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of Uni­ver­sity Women for 52 years, hav­ing first joined in 1959 and worked tire­lessly for its causes. She first served as branch pres­i­dent for AAUW in the early 60’s in the Arling­ton County branch. She moved to Alpharetta, Geor­gia, in 1984 and joined the Roswell-Alpharetta Branch (now the North Ful­ton Branch), encour­ag­ing greater activism and fundrais­ing at the national level. In 1997 she received the Geor­gia Achieve­ment Award, “for out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions that encom­pass the pur­pose of AAUW in the com­mu­nity.” At the time, she also served as Geor­gia Pub­lic Pol­icy Chair. She led as pres­i­dent of the North Ful­ton Branch on three sep­a­rate occa­sions. Alice was instru­men­tal in coor­di­nat­ing and pro­mot­ing the annual AAUW Book Fair, serv­ing as Day Chair and Steer­ing Com­mit­tee Chair. Her many projects in the com­mu­nity included lead­ing the Noon­day Nosh Book Club at the Roswell Library, and par­tic­i­pat­ing in Sister-to-Sister, a work­shop for mid­dle school girls. In 2001 the branch announced a national Research and Projects Grant of the AAUW Edu­ca­tional Foun­da­tion, named in her honor, which became fully funded in 2007. She was awarded an AAUW Life Mem­ber­ship in 2009.  In lieu of flow­ers, memo­r­ial con­tri­bu­tions may be made to AAUW, North Ful­ton Branch, 3280 King­shouse Com­mons, Alpharetta, GA 30022; to the atten­tion of the trea­surer, Car­olyn Gar­fein, phone 770–569-9957.

Pub­lished in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on March 8, 2011