Nolie Keith Wright Receives Award
This article gives a brief biographical sketch of Nolie Keith Wright. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: Greene, Mary H."Nolie Keith Wright Receives Award," Alumni Bulletin of East Carolina College , Volume IV, No. 3, May 1950.
Mrs. Nolie Keith Wright who initiated the community improvement program hailed thoughout the nation as "The Miracle of Macclesfield," was chosen as this year's recipient of the award for outstanding achievement made annually by the Alumni Association of East Carolina Teachers College. The presentation of the award was made by Dr. Hubert Haynes of the faculty at Alumni Day exercises on Saturday, May 13.
On this occasion, for the eleventh consecutive year, the association honored a graduate of the college by giving public recognition of service and accomplishment of a high order. Mrs. Wright was the eighth woman to receive the award.
A leader in community enterprises in the small town of Macclesfield, a housewife, and a former school teacher, Mrs. Wright stepped into the national spotlight in 1949 when the little village in which she lives won two awards in the "More Beautiful America" contest sponsored by the magazine, "Better Homes and Gardens."
Thirty-five members of the Woman's Club at Macclesfield brought to pass the "miracle" of transforming the town, once described as "one of the grubbier looking places in this section" into a "cleaner, livelier, more comfortable, more attractive community." It was Mrs. Wright, however, who started the project, headed the club which carried out a six point program of community betterment, and was the driving force behind the campaign to make Macclesfield the miracle town of the nation.
Mrs. Wright is a graduate of the two-year normal class of 1927 at East Carolina Teachers College. When she finished her college course, she began work in the public schools and spent ten years in Wake and Harnett counties as a teacher.During this period she studied at both the University of North Carolina and Wake Forest.
