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Miscellany

Former mayor pro tem John D. Boone dies

By Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer

Carrboro lifelong resident and longtime community activist John D. Boone Jr. died last Saturday at UNC Hospitals. He was 78.

Boone had retired as head of the purchasing department at UNC. He was a member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen from 1972 to 1987and also served as mayor pro tem. He was a member of the Carrboro Auxiliary Police and the Orange County Rescue Squad, was president of the Lion’s Club and was very active in his church, Carrboro United Methodist. He was named citizen of the year by the Jaycees and the Exchange Club and was awarded the 2003 Village Pride Award by WCHL-AM.

Board of Aldermen member Jacquie Gist remembers Boone as being “the best of old Carrboro, very much rooted here … and always involved in town things.”

“Back when this town was 5,000 people or less, he was involved and contributed,” and was open to change as it came.

Local attorney and former Board of Alderman Jay Bryan was for a time neighbors with Boone, who lived at the corner of Lindsay and Shelton streets. He agrees with Gist’s observation.

“I think he really was a buffer, or an intermediary, for the older families for whom it was difficult to see changes,” Bryan says. “Since he was on the board, he had the opportunity to hear all voices. He worked hard to do that.

“He was always a very friendly, open, congenial person who tried to do what was best for the town.”

“He was the kindest man,” says Gist.

In tribute to Boone’s devotion to youth and to the community, the playground at Wilson Park on N. Greensboro Street is named the John D. Boone Playground. In 2001, the board of aldermen acknowledged Boone as a “constant, cheerful, and faithful participant in all programs provided by the Carrboro Recreation and Parks Department.”

Boone was a Chapel Hill High School graduate and attended Appalachian State University on a football scholarship. He served as a tank commander in the Korean War.

He is survived by his daughter, Suzanne, and her husband, Hugh Reiber, of Clayton; his sister, Joyce, and her husband, Donnie Ward, of Carrboro; a granddaughter, Melanie, and her husband, Benjamin Bass, of Franklinton; a grandson, Johnny Milone, of Wilmington; and a great-grandson, Sterling Bass.

Funeral services were held this past Tuesday at Carrboro United Methodist Church. The family asks that memorials in John’s name be made to the church.