Ruby McSwain Education Center

Building Address: 4415 Beryl Road (show on map)

Building Abbreviation: RME

Building Number: 446

Precinct: West

The $4.2 million Ruby C. McSwain Education Center is a teaching, outreach and extension facility that houses classrooms and an auditorium. Bond funds provided $500,000 for the building and private donations supplied $3.7 million. The center is used by NC State students, the Friends of the Arboretum, North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service field faculty, local garden clubs, green industry representatives and other gardening-related groups.

The center is named for Ruby Vann Crumpler McSwain of Sanford, who donated $1.2 million toward its completion. McSwain, known by many as “Ms. Ruby,” is a noted philanthropist and has been one of the college’s more generous benefactors. In 1997, she donated 300 acres and a historic house to the N.C. Agricultural Foundation Inc. for North Carolina Cooperative Extension’s Lee County Center. She was named Citizen of the Year in 1997 by The Sanford Herald and Philanthropist of the Year in 1998 by the National Society of Fund Raising Executives’ Triangle Chapter. She is a major benefactor of Meredith College and the North Carolina Museum of Art.

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