Beth Bliss, News Editor

The name is frequently uttered across campus as students head to classes in the Broyhill Music Center or to conferences at the Broyhill Inn. Those who travel down Highway 321 are met by the sight of Broyhill Furniture Industries.

Apparently, one might think, the Broyhill name is important to the High Country, as well as to Appalachian State University.

Perhaps these concrete structures will serve as the most constant reminder of Satie Hunt Broyhill, ASU alumnus and lifelong contributor to the university, who died Dec. 26. She was 96.

Broyhill’s history with the university expanded beyond her family’s financial gifts to Appalachian, which supported construction of both the Broyhill Inn and Conference Center and the Satie Hunt Broyhill Music Center, dedicated in her honor in 1983.

University officials always said that Broyhill shared a birthday with ASU. Appalachian Training School officially opened July 13, 1899, the day Satie Hunt was born in Harmontown, Pa.

This correlation allowed for a special sentiment between Broyhill and the university, and earned her the nickname of Appalachian’s “First Lady,” a name coined by former ASU chancellor John E. Thomas.

After her family moved to Caldwell County, Broyhill found her way to the smallish school that shared her date of birth.

She studied music and graduated in 1918.

While in school she met her future husband, whom she married in 1921. J.E. Broyhill eventually founded Broyhill Furniture Industries in Lenoir.

The Broyhills maintained strong ties to Appalachian and to the Boone community as they watched ASU develop into a state-supported university.

Former U.S. Sen. James T. Broyhill recently told a reporter for The Winston-Salem Journal that a love for Appalachian was a primary focus of his mother’s life.

“She was always a great supporter of her alma mater and was proud of it becoming a college,” he said.

Satie Broyhill served on the university’s board of trustees through the 1950s and 1960s, and met or worked with every ASU president and chancellor.

Broyhill’s philanthropic involvement was not limited to Appalachian State.

With her husband, she supported the Town of Blowing Rock and several other academic institutions, including Wake Forest and Lenoir-Rhyne College.

The Broyhills donated funds to build several civic and senior centers in the Lenoir area, as well.

Satie Broyhill’s memories will be forever preserved on Appalachian’s campus.

Broyhill conducted three interviews with university officials interested in documenting her eyewitness account of ASU’s evolution from training school to university.

The interviews were videotaped and catalogued in university archives.
 
 

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