university, Cooperative Extension
When Dr. Eloise Snowden Cofer of Raleigh passed away at age 86 on Aug. 25, she left behind an unassailable legacy of service and philanthropy.
In 1980, when Cofer retired from the Cooperative Extension Service, she had served families and young people for 35 years, the final 17 of them as assistant director for home economics at N.C. State University. More than 500 people attended her 1980 retirement ceremony at McKimmon Center, when she stepped down as assistant director-in-charge of home economics for the then-Agricultural Extension Service.
But she continued her service by agreeing with the N.C. State University Foundation Inc. to establish a permanent $100,000 endowment in her name to support N.C. State Libraries, the Arts N.C. State program, the N.C. Cooperative Extension Foundation Inc. and the JC Raulston Arboretum. She also endowed the Eloise S. Cofer Family Living Lecture Series and the Eloise S. Cofer 4-H Family and Consumer Sciences Scholarship.
A Pocahontas, Va., native, Cofer received a 1937 bachelor of arts degree in home economics from Marshall University, a 1939 master’s degree in nutrition from Columbia University and a 1955 doctorate in nutrition from the University of Chicago.
She joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a food economist in 1955, moving in 1963 to become assistant director for home economics with the N.C. Agricultural Extension Service.
She came to North Carolina during the turbulent Civil Rights era, when Extension was trying to unify its educational efforts for more diverse audiences and was instrumental in ethnically integrating Cooperative Extension.
Under her leadership women began to hold top positions at all levels of the N.C. Agricultural Extension Service and saw their salaries become more competitive with those of male specialists and agents.
Among the innovative programs she championed was the federal
Extension Food and Nutrition Educational Program.
— Art
Latham
