 Mary Reid, program coordinator for the Health Care & Prevention (HC&P) concentration, based in the Gillings School’s Public Health Leadership Program, died peacefully on June 30 after a brief illness. Ms. Reid was the first person to hold the program coordinator title for the HC&P MD-MPH curriculum. She began as a temporary employee and acquired the permanent position because no other applicant could match the skill and professionalism she brought to the job. She was a woman of delicate loveliness and serene demeanor, her co-workers say, but her gentle appearance belied an iron capacity to organize program details large and small.
Those with whom she worked particularly valued her precise writing and editing skills and the ease and thoroughness with which she organized complicated information. No student memos have ever been communicated so clearly as were those she penned.
These abilities made her a natural nominee for a UNC Star Heel Award, an honor she attained in 2011.
Ms. Reid touched the lives of many co-workers in the School of Medicine and the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Those with whom she came in contact appreciated her courtesy and professionalism.
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“Every day, Mary was such a pleasure to work with,” said Anthony Viera, MD, director of the HC&P concentration. “She will be sorely missed.”
“Mary made it easy for us to rely on her as a treasured member of the program’s family,” said Sue Tolleson-Rinehart, PhD, the concentration’s associate director. “Our faculty, staff and students mourn her loss.”
Ms. Reid was a graduate of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, and had worked as an editor at the University of North Carolina Press before bringing her talents to the HC&P program. She loved traditional, roots and folk music and enjoyed supporting local farmers and artisans.
She is survived by her husband, Alfred Reid, a faculty member in the Department of Family Medicine; their children, Caroline and Patrick; and one grandchild.
A celebration of her life will be held Saturday, July 20, at 11 a.m. at the Newman Catholic Student Center, 218 Pittsboro Street, in Chapel Hill.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks friends to consider contributing in Mary’s memory to the Music Maker Relief Foundation, Planned Parenthood of Central N.C., or the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.
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