‘Friends of Katherine Wilson’ to host benefit event,
at which autographed basketballs will be auctioned

CHAPEL HILL -- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate Katherine Wilson, former men’s basketball coaches Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge, and current men’s basketball coach Roy Williams share at least one important quality: All have inspired the people around them.

Wilson died on Feb. 16 at her Chapel Hill home, after a four-and-one-half-year battle with small cell lung cancer. She was 28. Her diagnosis had come just months after entering UNC’s School of Nursing in 1999. Despite undergoing massive doses of radiation and chemotherapy, Wilson continued her studies long after her classmates had graduated and fulfilled a lifelong dream when she earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing with honors in 2004.

A benefit cocktail party and silent auction for the Katherine Wilson Scholarship Fund will be held from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursday (March 10) at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, Va. The event, to be at the Jane P. Batten Center, is free to the public.

The Hampton Roads Carolina Club is co-sponsoring the event, along with Virginia Wesleyan College President Billy Greer and his wife, Fann, and UNC’s School of Nursing. The Greers’ son, David, co-founded the scholarship fund and is engaged to Amanda Womble, who was Wilson’s roommate in nursing school.

Up for auction are two autographed basketballs, one signed by Smith and Guthridge, and the second signed by Williams and the 2004-2005 UNC men’s basketball team.

In addition, JBNR Partners is donating two official Woollen Gym Memorial Plaques with certificates of authenticity. Woollen Gym was the facility built in 1937 that hosted the UNC’s basketball program until 1965, where the undefeated 1957 NCAA men’s championship team practiced and played, and where Michael Jordan and other Tar Heel NBA stars have returned for informal pick-up games over the years. The plaques are made of the gym’s original maple flooring.

As a nursing student, Wilson organized a bone marrow drive on campus and worked with the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center to help advocate – successfully – for the construction of a cancer hospital in Chapel Hill.

The Friends of Katherine Wilson aims to raise $100,000 for the scholarship to assist future nursing students attending UNC.

"Our daughter was an inspiration to us and a lot of other people," said John Wilson, Katherine’s father. "She fought with fierce determination and kept going as long as she could keep going. We are very blessed to have had her with us for 28 years."

The basketballs up for auction will be sold to the highest bidder at Thursday’s event.

For more information on the event or on how to contribute to the scholarship fund, visit http://alumni.unc.edu/katherinewilson.

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School of Nursing contact: Norma Hawthorne, (919) 966-4619 or norma_hawthorne@unc.edu