Carol (Carrano) Adams

Carol Carrano Adams, a most remarkable women, unexpectedly passed away on March 20, 2023, in Albuquerque NM. Her passing came as a complete surprise to members of her family and friends.

Carol was born in Bridgeport CT. attended and graduated from Stratford Grammar School. Her parents, Irene, and Alfred Carrano, moved to Fairfield CT where Carol attended and graduated from Roger Ludlow H.S.

She was active in many school activities such as the student council, editor of the school newspaper and as a tutor for students needing help with their academics.

Carol matriculated to the University of Connecticut where she majored in elementary education and graduated with honors. She was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma and served as Chairman of the Pledge, Social, House and Scholarship Committees.

Carol met her future husband, Bill Adams who was also a UConn student. They were married in the Lady of Assumption Church Fairfield CT on June 1, 1957. Bill was a 1st Lt. in the USAF and stationed at North Truro AFS, N. Truro, Cape Cod MA. Carol often said that she was blessed to have had a three-month honeymoon at a great resort since the base had its own private beach and there were several other young married couples on site. In addition, a couple of the other officer wives also had teaching degrees, so Carol developed an immediate bond with these young ladies.

Bill and Carol moved to Atlanta GA in July 1958. Carol was hired by the Cobb County Board of Education and assigned to teach 4th grade in Hawthorne Elementary School Smyrna GA. She taught 4th Grade for 4 years.                                                                                                                                                                       Carol was very good at math and had almost enough college credits to have earned a minor in mathematics. This background led to her being assigned to Smyrna JHS to teach 7th and 8th grade math. Carol loved everything to do with the actual teaching of students; she did not like all the non-teaching functions that teachers were required to do such as collecting milk money. She resigned her position effective Dec 31, 1964. At that time, Carol was 7 months pregnant with our first child who was born on Feb 14, a Valentine Day Son, Bill Jr., 1965. Carol’s work career was put on hold because Carol wanted to raise her children and never wanted them to be classified as “Latch key kids.”

Carol’s husband Bill’s new position took him to the company headquarters in Lincoln NE and another adventure began. Carol became active with the Kappa Kappa Gamma Alumni and made many new Midwestern friends.

Jan 1967 brought another family relocation to beautiful Southern CA, the Los Angeles area.

Carol found the family a nice townhouse in Pasadena CA and once settled, she began searching for a home to buy since the townhouse was rented.

Any property that she inspected had to meet all or most of her checklist items. She found a house that met all her requirements, and we ended up in a lovely home in San Marino CA. She again became active with the Kappa Kappa Gamma alumni and that led to us having a very busy social life. She was becoming very proficient in networking. Carol entered Bill Jr. in a preschool program that met her requirements. She selected this program because the program’s main goal was to introduce children to one another to develop social skills at a young age.

Carol also participated in the Parent Child swimming program; children were taught to swim, but the parents had to be in the pool with the child. The program worked out great and our son knew how to swim before his third birthday. This was important due to the large number of swimming pools in S. CA, it would behoove a child to know how to swim and get out of a pool in case one accidentally fell in.

At about the same time Bill Jr entered the school program, Carol was contacted by the San Marino School District. After a couple of face interviews, she was offered a position as a substitute teacher in elementary school education. This worked out well since her school hours coincided with her son’s.

Although her hours were not regular, she worked at least a couple of days each week which provided her with some extra income and returned her into the school teaching mode.

She planned to return to full time teaching when our son was at an appropriate age.

Carol had become friendly with one of our neighbors and we began to socialize with this couple who were both graduates of the University of Southern CA, commonly known as SC. Both couples had season tickets to all SC home games. Since our friends were SC graduates, we were included in many of the events and parties. Carol had developed a slight Southern accent from our time living in Atlanta and was the bell of the ball due to her charming ways, including the slight accent.

Our friend, Marilyn’s father, just happened to be Chairman of the SC Board of Trustees and we were privileged to use his seats at the 1968 Rose Bowl Game. SC defeated Indiana and the celebrations lasted well into the night.

We rented a fabulous beach villa one summer at Balboa Island for a couple of weeks. Again, through Carol’s networking, she obtained for us a prime rental at a very reasonable price at the peak time of the year.

Carol also became an active alum of the KKG chapter in the Pasadena area; this connection added to our social life.

We moved back to Darian CT. in 1969; Carol reconnected us with former friends and so began another phase of her life. Unfortunately, she did not like living in CT. since she compared our overall lifestyle to other places we had lived. She often said that the only good thing that happened to us during our CT stay was that our daughter Margo was born in Stamford CT on Jan 14, 1970.

Bill had several offers for senior management positions, but Carol made it clear that this would be their last move until the children had graduated high school. She insisted that this family was now to establish roots in their chosen living area. After many hours of discussion and many prayers, Bill accepted a position with the company based in Atlanta GA.

The decision was a good one since Carol and Bill lived in Atlanta for 44 years, and both Bill Jr. and Margo have established roots there also.

Carol began her search for a new home for the family. Not only were the usual house requirements to be met, but additional ones concerning finding the best Atlanta public elementary schools, a short walking distance from our home and preferably on a dead-end street.

She somehow found all these key factors in the house that we bought and consequently lived in for 26 years. Now she began to make the house into our home. Since the house had been built in 1956, she listed all the improvements that must be made, and these were listed in priority of importance. It was quite a list. Number one was to add central air conditioning to the entire house. It took about 4 years to finish all the enhancements, but the entire family was absolutely delighted as to the finished product. Carol was the ramrod for all these projects and that is the main reason all turned out so incredibly good.

She continued to being a great mother to our children, a wonderful wife, and a terrific homemaker.

She also became involved with the Atlanta KKG Alumni. She became an assistant alumni advisor to the Emory KKG Chapter. At about this time, she was selected by the National President, Jean Wells, to serve on a national membership committee. The goal of this committee was to increase KKG’s member growth, both at existing chapters and establishing new chapters. This assignment aided in the development of Carol’s communication skills, both verbal and written.

She was also a member of the Young Women’s Atlanta Symphony Club. The goal of this club was to teach and promote symphony benefits to elementary and high school students. Film presentations were made to this specific audience and were received enthusiastically, by the elementary students. Membership in this fine organization automatically terminated once a member reached the age of 40. However, this over 40 age group continued their friendships and were a very social group for many years.

About this time, a UConn KKG sorority sister and a contemporary of Carol, who was the publisher of a National Women’s Trade Magazine, was in Atlanta for a trade show and invited Carol to lunch. She had read some of the articles Carol had written concerning her KKG time on both National and local Committees. She needed an individual to visit the various companies that displayed their merchandise at the Atlanta Merchandise Mart, to ascertain what these representatives saw as future trends and then write a monthly column for the magazine. Carol would be paid for each column published and would receive reimbursement for incidental expenses such as mileage, parking, and client lunches. Carol warmed up to this proposal since she could still manage her family obligations and do this job within her established time constraints.

So began her new career in business.

She worked for Handbag’s and Accessories Magazine for about a year and was contacted by the publisher of a Miami based fashion trade newspaper who invited her to have lunch with him in Atlanta the following week. The meeting led to a job offer that would be more challenging than her current job but financially more rewarding. She would be the Atlanta Mart Representative for the Miami Trade Journal. She would be their prime responsible person for advertising sales, trend reporting and PR for the Miami publication. She approached this new job the same way she approached any of her previous challenges. Find out who are the key people in her client base and establish a working relationship. Within a year, she had quadrupled ad sales, and at the end of the 2nd year, she was producing more revenue than the headquarters-based team and she was a one-person operation.

Carol was beginning to establish herself as a go-to person concerning Women’s Wear Fashion.  About this time, the Miami owners changed the name of the trade newspaper to Miami of the South. This change was due to the success of their Atlanta operation which was all Carol.

Sometime later, an Atlanta publishing group bought the newspaper and changed the name of the newspaper to Apparel South. Initially, Carol was pleased with the ownership change. As with any new ownership change, new rules, regulations, procedures, and goals are different. Carol acclimated herself to the new ownership and was given her new assignments which were not much different than what she was doing previously. She continued to be successful in her assignments and met all her company set goals including expenses. She was given a small office in headquarters but only spent a minimal amount of time there. She continued to write her reports from home, and this went on for over a year.

There was a corporate meeting that included all the employees of the various magazines and trade journals that this company published. A revised corporate policy was presented that was very constricting to the outside sales personnel. Carol spoke to the publisher of her newspaper and voiced her concerns. He said this really did not pertain to her since her results speak for themselves and her client base was different that most of the others. He said merely send in your weekly pre-plan itinerary and list Atlanta Mart as your weekly pre calls. This worked fine for a period. However, this publisher was promoted to a much larges publication and the new publisher had even a stricter set of rules than the existing corporate ones. Carol knew her time was limited working for this person.

It just happened at about the same time Carol was contacted by the National Sales Manager of Women’s Wear Daily, the premier women’s fashion newspaper in the world. A meeting was set up, and quickly an offer made, some negotiations and Carol accepted the offer to become WWD’s SE Regional Manager. She would be responsible for all activities, including producing an acceptable rate of revenue, for the Atlanta, Charlotte, and Miami Mart’s. Her income was both salary and commission based and a performance bonus. Bill Jr had just obtained his GA driver’s license and would be able to help Margo’s necessary transporting needs. We also had a full-time housekeeper who also prepared our dinner meals.

Carol resigned from Apparel South; they were not too happy. Carol moved on immediately to WWD and began her new position with renewed enthusiasm and dedication. WWD furnished her with a nice office at the Atlanta Mart. She was successful in achieving all her assigned goals and in a couple of years, she was also assigned to the team that represented WWD’s in both the Dallas and New York City Marts. By this time, Bill Jr. was a student at Princeton University and Margo was a high school student at Westminster Schools in Atlanta.

Carol continued working for WWD into and sometime during the 1990’s, she confided in me that she was becoming weary and believes she should retire, which she did.

Carol became the main alumni advisor for the KKG Emory Chapter. The undergraduates were intrigued that their advisor had such a broad business career for a woman. She had no trouble communicating and advising these young ladies who viewed Carol as a Women’s Lib trendsetter.

Carol was contacted by an Atlanta multiple periodical and magazine publisher. They were preparing to launch a new magazine aimed at the bridal and special events market named, Weddings and Special Events. They had all their parts in place but lacked an experienced sales and PR person. The publisher explained he was under pressure from above and needed to show immediate positive results.

From her previous industry experience knew potential advertisers in this new magazine. However, it took longer than expected due to the concerns of potential advertisers about the magazine’s low current circulation. Fortunately, magazine sales began rapidly increasing; ad sales increased, and a positive revenue stream began.

Additional salespeople were added, the territory expanded to all the Georgia major cities and now the magazine did very well because it effectively targeted a readership starving for this type of information.

In a few years, the Atlanta magazine did so well, that the publisher decided to expand into a Dallas Texas publication. He asked Carol to head up the sales for that new product. Since her son and wife were living in Dallas, she took the assignment. Progress was slower than expected and Carol explained to the publisher that this growth program would be much slower than the Atlanta story. She told him that they needed to hire an experienced Dallas resident. She also told him she would help him identify local candidates and set up interviews. He would then interview the candidates and make the choice. Once the hire was made, Carol spent a couple of months working with this person.

At about this same time, our large Atlanta home was sold and a downsize to a Buckhead Condo occurred. Carol had always wanted to live on a lake, preferably in the mountains. She began exploring locations in North Georgia and Tennessee. She had not found any areas that she really liked; most were too crowded or remote. A very good friend had moved from Atlanta to Brevard NC and asked Carol to spend the weekend at her new house.

Carol decided to try another route back to Atlanta that took her through Cashiers; a couple of miles outside of Cashiers, a sign noted Lake Glenville 7 miles. She made the turn, came upon the lake and the rest is history.

In 1997 our Glenville NC house was acquired. It was in the mountain community of Tater Knob and only a couple of hundred yards to our community beach on beautiful Lake Glenville.

Carol resigned from the publication and explained to the publisher that we had bought an older house and she needed to spend full time making it livable. She also told him that she was finally retiring for good.

The house was two story 1800 square feet, simply perfect for 2 people to enjoy retirement.  Carol contacted an Atlanta Contractor who had previously done work for us, and he came up to the house, he received a list of what was to be done, he gave us an estimate, and we executed a contract for all the work. Unfortunately, the work did not go that smoothly and after paying him for the work completed, he was terminated. Carol found local subcontractors to complete the project that included redoing some of the shoddy work done by our original contractor. Work was finally completed in the Summer of 1998, and we moved into our new home.

Living in this beautiful mountain community was such a treat. Carol enjoyed everything about living in the Glenville community. Mostly, she enjoyed meeting and getting to know the residents. She said these are just the salt of the earth, plain good people.

Bill was still working full time but able to arrange his schedule that he usually had 3-day weekends to spend in Glenville.

Carol began to explore this lovely mountain area; it was the first time in Carol’s adult life that she could enjoy herself without any obligations except to her family and herself. We had a 4-wheel drive SUV that allowed us to travel on many off-road excursions. This was one of the most enjoyable times of our lives. Carol was enchanted with the entire scenario and looked 15 years younger.

Carol signed up at the Glenville Community Center as a volunteer to work in the Thrift Store. The store was primarily staffed by longtime residents of Glenville. Carol, always being inquisitive, would talk to the fellow workers about Glenville, present and past. She listened to these ladies speak about old Glenville and was taken back as she listened to the verbal history of this community; she said when these people pass, an entire history of this Glenville will be gone, and it truly caused her great deal of discomfort.

Carol also joined the Friends of Lake Glenville in 2000; she thought it would be a good idea to learn about the lake since we lived on it but knew nothing about it. In 2001, she was elected to the board and subsequently to Vice President. She was elected President in 2002 and knew what changes needed to be made immediately to make the FLG        a more efficient organization.

She selected some capable members to head up the active committees, such as Membership, Finance, Event Planning, Water Quality to name a few. At each meeting, the chair of each committee would give a progress report and then answer questions from the members. This was a new procedure that had never been done before. All Carol did was implement the long-standing method of running organization’s meetings, “Robert’s Rules of Order.”

She immediately inherited a very serious problem that included Duke Power, FERC and many lakes and waterways owned by Duke. Duke had called for these meetings and the official title was the Duke Relicensing Board Meetings.

These meetings went on from 2001 to 2010 when finally, an accord was reached by all legal stakeholders and relicensing was approved by FERC (Federal Energy Relicensing Commission) and would be in effect for the next 30 years.

All the Stakeholders involved had designated individuals elected or nominated by the individual entities.

Lake Glenville had selected Doug Odell, Phil Fowler, and Carol Adams as their designated Stakeholders.

There were many entities involved, all with their own agendas. Duke and FERC personnel jointly chaired the meetings. Outside entities wanted their own personal interests approved, no matter if it would damage lake shorelines or lake levels or kill the aqua life. Carol was instrumental in having lake people put their individual agendas aside and become a united front. The lake people met separately and discussed the next meeting’s agendas, agreed on a course of action and Carol was usually the spokesperson. Her reputation as a very fluent spokesperson became well known within all the confines of these deliberators; also, she was very tough and not able to be intimidated.

Powerful outside organizations such as the White-Water Association of America wanted unlimited water release from Lake Glenville that would allow unlimited kayaking. This would of course have drained Lake Glenville to very low levels that would have had a serious negative effect on the shorelines, boating, fishing etc.

The meetings concerning North Carolina waterways were held all over the state over a 10-year period; Carol attended everyone one.

Two major suits were initiated by FLG and Jackson County Commission.

FLG suit main concern was the unlimited water release; FERC agreed with FLG and was instructed to produce an acceptable plan that would not harm the lake.

Jackson County Commission wanted to save the Dillsboro Dam from being torn down; JCC lost and eventually the dam was torn down.

Carol had two more major issues that she wanted to have FERC agree and direct Duke to implement.

Elimination of the 10-foot reserve rule that was implemented years ago and Duke building a public beach not too far from the existing dam.

She had the foresight to meet with one of the key FERC members and discuss her plan.

The FERC representative said that FERC will support Duke keeping the 10-foot rule but will side with Lake Glenville Stakeholders to have Duke build a public beach.

Carol then met privately with one of the Duke representatives who she had an amicable working relationship with. They discussed the main two items concerning FLG, and he would agree with FERC. He said if Carol presented her two resolutions at an open voting meeting, he would ensure that the building of the beach would be approved.

Prior to the next meeting, Carol made a sketch of what she believed the proposed beach should look like.

Everything went through as orchestrated in advance. Duke representative said a plan would be submitted to FLG for approval before any work started. When the plan was submitted for FLG approval, it far exceeded anything the Stakeholders expected. A large, paved parking lot, full-service men and women’s bathrooms, a picnic area complete with tables and benches, 2 large fishing piers, a handicap wheelchair ramp and a large beach that had a safety rope spanning the outside of the designated swimming area.

FERC ruled there would be no more than six water releases for kayaking each year.

Today’s Lake Glenville’s water levels are better than at any time in its history, so all the hours that the Stakeholders invested were worth it.

As a result of Carol’s overall performance during the many years of the Duke Relicensing negotiations, Carol was elected President of the North Carolina Lake Management Society, which was quite an honor, considering the size of Lake Glenville compared to many of the other North Carolina lakes.

Carol joined the Jackson County Republican Party in 2002; she was selected to be the official keeper of minutes by the Chairperson. The Jackson GOP unfortunately was very small in numbers and had no success in electing GOP County candidates. The organization was stagnant, there was no growth in membership and very little interest from county residents.

Carol realized that something must be done to begin to generate interest in the local GOP Party; She began writing letters to the editors of local weekly papers located in Cashiers and Sylva. Newspaper rules allowed only one letter per month from a writer.

She knew that this single monthly letter would not generate enough interest; she gathered a group of local GOP members and attempted to convince them to begin writing letters to the local newspapers. All believed it was a good idea too but did not feel they had the writing skills. Carol had the answer, she would write the letter under their name, email the writer who would email the newspaper, thus bending the rules a bit but these times called for positive action. Over a period, a regular flow of letters was published in the local newspapers and for the most part sent in by concerned citizens as to the benefits of an effective two-party system.

It was now 2008 and another election year. Carol attended the NC GOP Convention and had a beneficial education as to who is who in the NC GOP Party. The contacts she made would benefit the Jackson GOP for many years to come.

Carol was the PR person for Chairman of the Jackson County GOP running for this district’s seat in the NC House of Representatives. Carol set up meet and greet events all over the candidate’s districts. She used their limited funds to obtain many radio spots and a few televised commercials. She was able to obtain much needed funding from the GOP state party. She organized a letter writing campaign to flood the newspapers with the GOP message. During this time, the campaign manager resigned, and Carol took over that role in addition to the PR. Unfortunately, the candidate lost but had received more than double the number of votes than any other previous Jackson County House candidate.

Nationally, the Republican Party had a disastrous year. Presidential candidate John McCain lost and so did many of the other national candidates, with the Democrat Party winning the Presidency, and control of the House and Senate.

Carol received a telephone call from one of the top people in the NC GOP Party. He congratulated her on conducting a great campaign; unfortunately, her candidate was flawed and could never win. He further stated that a change in leadership must happen, or the party will continue to stagnate. Carol replied that she felt a sense of loyalty to the current party chair and don’t believe she could lead a movement to oust her. He gave Carol some very good direction. When you’re alone, ask the chair what new direction and plans how she was to grow the party? If you are satisfied with her answer, fine, we do not need to discuss this subject again. If you are not satisfied, call me.

She was not satisfied; the call was made, and forces were now in motion to elect a new Chairman of the Jackson County GOP Party. The election took place early in 2010 and a new chair, co-chair, Carol Adams, and chair fund raising were elected. Since these individuals had been planning the replacement of the long-term chair, they hit the ground running. Since she was the PR person, she became very visible to the local community. She was responsible for placing GOP ads with the local area television and radio stations, local newspapers, and broadcast emails concerning local GOP events. Through all these all these endeavors, she was able to achieve a high degree of credibility concerning the Jackson County GOP party. This credibility would aid in acquiring sponsorships for events, fund raising campaigns, etc.

A permanent meeting place was obtained, social, fundraising, meet and greet events and a continual series of events planned to keep and develop interest in the party. The Jackson County Party began electing individuals to county wide offices, a few to start but each election cycle improving until in 2022, every elected office in Jackson County voted in Republicans, including the Chairman of the Jackson County Commissioners and the Jackson County Sheriff, the first Republican Sheriff elected in over 100 years.

As mentioned earlier, Carol was a prolific letter writer. She wrote a letter outlining all the issues facing our nation in 2016. She then stated how each candidate would solve these issues.  She then stated factually the reasons why one should support the GOP presidential candidate and what was wrong with the Democrat presidential candidate.

This letter invoked a multitude of responses, the overwhelming majority complimenting and agreeing with the letter. However, the most complimentary response came from the publisher of one of the newspapers who said,” You should have been the main political writer for the New York Times or the Washington Post.”

The changes that took place from 2010 to the current year were monumental. In the beginning, three people worked very hard to make Jackson County relevant. These individuals laid the foundation for future leaders to follow. It is without a doubt that these three individuals were the driving force that caused the positive changes in the party. After 10 years of active service, Carol saw there were enough younger qualified individuals to continue to grow the party. It was time to move on; she was still involved and communicated regularly with the current leadership.

Even after Carol officially retired from Weddings and Events magazine, she continues to receive calls from many of her former clients, usually asking for advice. Rather than continuing to give out this free advice, she decided to start my own consulting firm and named it “Carol Adams and Associates.” The name of her company did not attract very many potential clients; it liked pizazz. She added a sub company and named it “Solve It.” This immediately generated interest and soon she was being contacted as to the feasibility of a project that she might handle, etc.

Initially her clients were all from the Women’s Fashion Industry, ranging from manufacturers, manufacturers’ representatives and even some retail stores. She did not take on any assignments which were complicated and/or required a long-term investment of her time. She also limited the number of clients that she was servicing at any one time. She did not want this business to become a full-time career.

She was able to successfully operate her business from home. Between the home computer and cell phone, she could communicate with her clients via both telephone and email negating most of the requirements of face-to-face communication. She operated her business from both Atlanta and Glenville.

As she began spending more time in Glenville and becoming more involved with the local community, she reduced the number of regular clients to an easily managed number. However, due to her involvement in Glenville area community affairs, she generated interest with some local businesses in need of someone with her expertise. All her initial clients were companies that were part of the construction industry. Soon she was doing special projects for real estate companies. However, she had to be very careful as to the number of companies that she was working for due to her major involvement with the Friends of Lake Glenville and the Jackson County GOP Party. She only had a certain amount of free time available.

She ended up with two major clients that effectively took up all her available time. She began producing newspaper and radio ads for Tom Sawyer’s Tree Farm. She was able to gain a feature article about the Sawyer Tree Farm published in the Smokey Mountain News. She wrote the article that was printed under the byline of a staff columnist. This was great free publicity.

She also produced ads and multi color brochures promoting the Sawyer Elk Village. The target audience was for children, ages 4-10. This village was a huge success; not only the Village activity but the gift shop associated with the Village sold vast quantities of merchandise and the Red Barn food service venue was also very successful.

The major challenge facing the Sawyer enterprise was the forming and introduction of the Sawyer Family Homestead. The Homestead was to become a major venue for all types of social events, including weddings, anniversary celebrations, holiday Events, and any event requiring a large modern centrally heated and air-conditioned facility. The Homestead would provide all the tables, chairs, special lighting, stage, China, glassware, silverware etc. Homestead would have outdoor grills, warming tables and the like. Homestead would not provide any food or beverages. It was up to the client to decide on food, beverages and live music if required. Initially, this start up business was slow. It did not attract the local trade that had been expected. Most of the revenue came from organizations outside this local trading area. New target markets were identified and within a short time revenue improved dramatically. The venue was ideal for weddings and this event became the major target area. Solve-It provided the entire introduction plan and later the switch to markets that best suited Homestead. Over time, Homestead became a major success story and the programs Solve-It designed and implemented played a large part in this success story.

As her heavy involvement with Sawyer Tree Farms and Homestead was reduced, she was contacted by the President of the Greater Cashiers Area Merchants Association. She was offered the contract to provide all advertising and public relations for the association. She outlined to the membership an outline of her planned PR and advertising for the Association and the individual merchants. Print advertising, website, planned special events, special regular and special sales events, effective signage and displays and windows should be made attractive.  Carol used her media connections to obtain a great deal of free GCAMA positive coverage. Overall, her the programs that she implemented must have been successful since most merchants reported increased sales compared to the previous year.

An item of note, she was contacted by one of the key individuals in the Jackson County Tree Association. They would like to hire Carol to conduct their PR and advertising. She would have a very liberal budget to work with, but a hiring requirement would be to disassociate all connections to the Sawyer Tree Farm, as they were not members. Carol simply said no, she could not do that, and discussions were ended. Even though her time was being reduced and would soon effectively end with Sawyer Enterprises, she believed her loyalty to that organization far exceeded any potential new clients.

She was Vice President of the Glenville Community Development Club. One of the major projects that the GCDC undertook was the Glenville Initiative, a challenge due to the independent nature of many of the residents. She was one of the founding members of the Glenville Initiative, an organization formed by community volunteers to preserve Glenville’s Mountain Lake beauty, rich historical heritage, and natural environment. All Glenville residents, local or seasonal, from Big Ridge to Norton, on the Lake, around the lake and all over the community were welcome to join. Some of the primary goals of the Initiative were to enhance the visual impression of the Highway 107 corridor, reduce Highway 107 speed through Glenville and improve pedestrian safety. Commercial businesses were contacted and presented with ideas to easily improve their serving community needs.

Carol’s involvement with numerous community programs proved the need to obtain more visibility for the Glenville community. Radio and TV spots would be cost prohibitive. Something must be developed that would accomplish increased positive visibility at zero cost. She developed a plan, obtained an appointment with the publisher of the Crossroads Chronicle, a weekly newspaper serving primarily Jackson County. She had established a friendly relationship due to her years as president of the Friends of Lake Glenville and PR person for the Jackson County GOP. An agreement weas reached to give her plan, a monthly page written by Carol, extolling happenings in the Glenville Community. The publisher’s main concern was if this page would generate any advertising from the Glenville business community. After the first edition was published, advertisers filled up all available spots. Each page, headline “Getting to Know Glenville” had articles including outlining activities concerning activities on Lake Glenville including boat trips to the waterfalls, tubing for the younger children and wake boarding and water skiing for the older ones, checking out the best fishing spots, The Glenville Community Center is firing up the grilles for “Grilling in Glenville”, a free hot dog, hamburgers, soft drinks and chips event. Potluck suppers are offered all over Glenville in the summer months. The VFW had happy hours on Fridays and dinners on designated Saturdays, all veterans were welcome. Activity reports from the Friends of Lake Glenville, including water purity testing results, lake cleanliness, monthly meetings, and social events. Activities for the Glenville Area Historical Society have expanded, particularly involving the Glenville History Museum, docent Museum tours, and museum new additions. Ice cream socials were excellent venues for “Meet and Greet” events. The museum regularly had special events featuring guest presenters; one of the best was the display of Glenville’s own Raggedy Ann and Andy. Several of the churches had many events scheduled, through the summer months. The overall community reaction to this monthly page was incredibly positive. Carol might be in the supermarket; strangers would come up to her and ask if she was the Carol Adams that writes the Glenville page. Many were lifelong residents, and they would tell her that for the first time in their lives someone was writing something nice about Glenville and thanked her.

Carol’s biggest and most difficult challenge concerned the Glenville History Society. She had no idea when it started how involved and time consuming this project would become. This project was officially launched in the summer of 2009. Members of the community became concerned that much of the history of Glenville and the surrounding communities would be lost if experiences and recollections from aging residents and founding families were not recorded and preserved. A project strategy committee was formed with members involved having long time family ties to the Glenville area communities either as descendants of early settlers, early Hamburg township residents or property owners some going back to when Lake Glenville was built and current homeowners. It was not yet decided how extensive the publication would be, some said a pamphlet with mostly pictures, 10 to 15 pages.

2010, Carol Adams advised the strategy committee that a pamphlet is out of the question; it would not adequately contain all the information initially obtained and a book will be needed. Funds must be raised to cover initial costs. Revenue will be obtained from donations and conducting special events.

In 2012, the Glenville History project was renamed the Glenville Area Historical Society and developed into a membership organization. Members of the GAHS became involved conducting interviews with aging residents, conducted map research, collecting documents and research history.

From 2011 to 2015, Glenville Area Historical Tours were implemented, all self-driving, driving directions and a very complete brochure detailing each historic property, complete with pictures. In addition, a GAHS docent would be on site to take people through the site and answer questions. These tours were very successful but were discontinued with the 2016 acquisition of a permanent museum building, donated by the owners of Signal Ridge Marina, the Shuey Family of Glenville. The building was called Glenville History Museum. The earlier efforts of collecting documents and artifacts were now intensified. Families of early descendants were prime to contact concerning any documents, photographs, or artifacts that they would either donate or lend to the museum. The response was excellent and soon the museum had enough material to display. Members of GAHS spent many hours labeling all the material that was to be displayed and setting up these items for display.

Carol was President of the Glenville Area Historical Society from 2012 to 2017. She was totally involved in the formation of the GAHS and the acquisition of the building that became the museum. Carol was also thinking about the book that had to be written. She knew from her experience in the fashion industry publishing business what would be required; it was not a task for non-experienced people. After several individuals were interviewed, one was selected, and a game plan laid out. All involved seem to be on the same page; Carol spoke to this person regularly and all was going in the right direction. After a month, a progress meeting was set up at the museum. Progress was minimal and what was done needed a total rewrite. Termination was immediate; Carol rewrote the material in three days. It also became evident that the coordinator of the book had to have rapport with all the people involved in conducting interviews and gathering documents and photographs.

The strategic committee revised the working plan; they identified the key families in order of priority. The committee then assigned a member based on the member’s rapport with the family to be contacted for interviews. Over many generations, there were occasional bad feelings between two families, and one did not want the interviewer to have a long-ago conflict between ancestors of both families. One of the committee members stated, some of these old-time conflicts were serious, not as bad as Hatfield and McCoys but close.

Carol had established an outline for the book. She organized the many families that were to be prominent in the book’s importance into chapters. As information was obtained and verified, she would then put the available material into the book. She was able to have a work in progress for immediate editing. If no editing is required, then then this family’s history was done. Overall, it was a very tedious and demanding project. She had to rely on many individuals, all volunteers and all with their own sense of urgency and commitment to this project. She had to be a mother, confidant, and psychiatrist. And let us not forget the referee. During this time, she was researching potential publishers. She knew the type that was needed; the key was to find one that she could work with and be within the cost parameters she established due to her previous industry experience. She found the publisher, submitted a couple unfinished chapters. She wanted him to see what the actual product would be. He had no problem with what the material was to be. A price negotiated and now only finalizing the book remains. However, she persevered through all these adversities and six years later, all material was finalized, and material submitted to the publisher. Publisher would review material, meet with Carol and she would clarify his issues. A proof copy of the book would be submitted for their final approval and then actual publication would occur.

Carol received a call from the publisher on Mar 10 advising her that he has all the material, and it looks good. It will take him a few weeks to assemble in final book form and then they will meet to go over all items he has red flagged. Then a proof copy will be printed; after reviewed and any corrections noted and addressed, the book will go into final printing. He estimated it to be about eight weeks.

Carol was so relieved that this project was finally almost done. At this time, she was in a PT Rehab facility, building up her leg strength. She was improving daily; her walking and standing were back to normal. She expected rehab to be complete around Mar 27 and she would be released.

Carrol loved March Madness, both Men and Women NCAA Basketball Tournament. For years, we watched all the games and 2023 was not any different except she was in Fiesta Rehab Facility. She passed away exactly two weeks before Uconn won the 2023 Men’s Basketball Championship.

Carol enjoyed sports, Atlanta Braves and Falcons, she was a big GA. Bulldog fan, Uconn Men and Women’s basketball and sometimes football. For many years she enjoyed watching March Madness, she liked watching so many teams that one usually did not see play during regular season.

Carol played tennis in her earlier years but decided on golf because it was much more sociable and could be played well into one’s later years. She was a member of the Atlanta Athletic Club and East Lake Country Club and Ansley Golf Club (44-year Lifetime Member) Atlanta GA and Trillium Links and Lake Club Cashiers NC.

Carol lived in Atlanta GA for 40 years and Glenville NC for 23 years is survived by her husband of 66 years Bill Adams.  Son Dr. William P. Adams Jr, his wife Dr. Jennifer Jordan and grandson Luke and granddaughter Brooke all Dallas TX.  Daughter Margo Malveira, her husband David who live in Albuquerque NM, grandchildren Stephanie Malveira lives in Seattle,  Aviva Lahmany and husband Omer and great grandchildren Hallel and Sinai who live in Arizona. Her brother Dr. Richard Carrano and his wife Linda of Salisbury and Ocean Pines MD, her nephew Richard Carrano and his wife Angie and great niece Sophia and great nephew Nick, her niece Beth Garrett and her husband Joe, great nephews Grant and Jake, all of Atlanta GA. Niece Kim Weslowski, great nephew Tyler and great niece Desiree all of Plainville CT., niece Dr. Kris Moger and her husband Randy and great niece Marina Lake Tahoe NV, cousin Nanci Gorman and her husband John, Cleveland OH, cousin Judi Hampton Richardson TX.

Many more cousins in Bridgeport and Milford CT.

EPILOGUE

One may wonder as to the format and content of Carol’s obituary. She despised the sterile manner that an individual life was portrayed in the typical obit that all of us have seen in newspapers and websites over these many years. She often said that these lacked any warmth or display of the true persona of the deceased individual.

She said I will write my own and then people will know something more about the real me, not just an ersatz rendition. Unfortunately, Carol’s unexpected passing came before she ever wrote her own obit.

I composed a standard obit, complete with most pertinent information; upon my review I realized this was the exact type of obituary Carol despised; hence the writing of this new piece, correctly named, Á Life History of Carol Adams.

All the basic information is factual; some of the dates may be incorrect. The history was obtained from Carol’s papers, her colleagues, and friends.

Carol had her faults, as all of us have; her main one was stubbornness. Once she made her mind up about an issue, nothing could dissuade her from changing her mind. Not too bad of a shortcoming since she usually was right concerning the position she took.

I have attempted to portray Carol as a real person. She was a great mother to her children, a wonderful and generous grandmother, remembered all her family and friends’ birthdays and overall, a delightful person to be around.

Carol and I had been married for sixty-six years; not only was she my wife for all those years, also was truly my best friend. All important decisions were made jointly throughout our lives.

I miss her company every day and still have difficulty adjusting to her being gone from my life on this earth. I expect to catch up with her in Heaven and that thought has enabled me to adjust to her passing.

Carol is missed by her family and her many friends and had a positive influence on many lives; she is missed but fondly remembered by all.

Carol is loved by all and missed all the time.

A Celebration of Life Event will be held on:

Saturday, August 12, 2023, at Noon (12:00 PM)

Hamburg Baptist Church, 4673 HWY 107 N, Glenville NC 28736

The family requests in lieu of flowers, a donation made to:

GAHS -- Notation “History Book Marketing”

Checks should be mailed to: Malina Fowler, PO Box 428, Glenville NC 28736

GAHS is a 501C3 corporation and all donations made are tax deductible.

FINIS

After the Celebration, refreshments will be served at Happ’s Restaurant, located about 1.5 miles on Hwy 107 N, on the route to Sylva. It will be a time to meet and greet members of Carol’s family. A microphone will be available for all to speak on this occasion.