Throughout the course of the 2008-2009 academic year, we will seek to recognize some of the great names of the past to highlight the heritage of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association in honor of the Association’s 95th anniversary. In this edition we are pleased to recognize the late Mary Garber of WInston-Salem.

Mary Garber was a true pioneer in the media field.

Mary moved from the society pages to the sports section back in 1944 during World War II with the Twin City Sentinel in Winston-Salem, and began over half a century of involvement as a sports journalist, one of the first female sports writers in the country.She actively covered a number of different sports and was a fixture at high school and college events for many, many years, including covering tennis well into the 1990’s for the Winston-Salem Journal.

A graduate of R.J. Reynolds High and a ‘38 graduate of Hollins College, she is a former president of the Atlantic Coast Sportswriters Association and is a member of several other Halls of Fame, including the North Carolina Journalism Hall, the North Carolina Tennis Hall and the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. A high school basketball tournament named in her honor is an annual highlight in Forsyth County.

Mary was inducted into the NCHSAA Hall of Fame in 1998 and died in September of 2008 at the age of 92.