Betty Gates (’59), Portland, Maine, earned a bachelor’s in education at North Texas, where she served as president of Zeta Tau Alpha; was involved with the Panhellenic Council, Student National Education Association and the Association for Childhood Education; and was a finalist in Pi Kappa Delta Oratory contest.

During her career, she oversaw the sales associate training program at the flagship Neiman Marcus store in Dallas and supported senior leadership at Texas Instruments, Baylor College of Medicine and at KHOU-TV Houston. She was a special assistant to art patron and philanthropist Dominique de Menil, who asked her to serve on the opening team of The Menil Collection museum.

Betty briefly lived in Brooklyn, New York, before returning to Texas, where she attended the 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston and spoke before the Houston City Council, arguing against a proposal to drill for oil in Memorial Park. In 1987, she moved to Maine and earned a bachelor’s in English at University of Southern Maine. In honor of her 80^th birthday, she visited and walked the trails at Mt. Katahdin, Maine’s tallest mountain.