Frances Farthing grew up in the northern corner of Western North Carolina, the first of eight children born to Ben W. and Dixie Glenn Farthing. Both of her parents taught in the shadow of Beech Mountain, before the hills and “hollers” were transformed into a resort community. Her grandfathers also taught, traveling across the region for two to four months at a time.
Farthing’s sisters instilled the importance of education in her life. She eventually combined her own interest in nursing with the family tradition of teaching. Farthing graduated from Cornell University’s New York Hospital School of Nursing, then helped establish Western North Carolina’s first baccalaureate nursing program in Hickory.
Farthing was searching for a way to have a positive impact on students when she learned of The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina. “I know that a good teacher with ample resources can change a child’s life,” she said. In 1995, she established the Ben W. and Dixie Glenn Farthing Charitable Fund, named in honor of her parents, which provides support for rural teachers in the mountain region to offer creative activities that help keep children interested in school.
The grant program supported by this fund is called “Learning Links,” and each year grants of up to $700 are made to public schools in the WNC counties of Avery, Graham, Jackson, Madison, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, and Swain.