University of North Carolina At Charlotte
At her retirement in 1973, the student union building was named the Bonnie E. Cone University Center in her honor, as were numerous scholarship and fellowship programs in subsequent years. She continued to work for the University as liaison with the UNC Charlotte Foundation, helping to raise money and build alumni support, even into her 90s. She rarely missed a convocation, never a commencement and seldom a basketball game. When she appeared at campus events, students would come up in small groups to introduce themselves. They took pleasure in having an opportunity to meet her. She returned the compliment by focusing her full attention on each of them, inquiring about their hometowns, their majors, their goals at the University, and offering them encouragement. In 1990, when UNC Charlotte marked the 25th anniversary of its induction into The University of North Carolina, Miss Bonnie joined in ringing the Old Bell that UNC Charlotte used for ceremonial occasions.
From high in the crowd that overlooked the ceremony in the breezeway between the two halves of Colvard Hall, the voice of a single student called out, We love you, Bonnie Cone. The cry elicited spontaneous and prolonged applause from the rest of the gathering. She attended every commencement at UNC Charlotte until well into her 90s and often signed autographs for smiling graduates who had only heard of her but, seeing her smiling eyes, wanted to be part of her legacy. In addition to her work for Charlotte College and UNC Charlotte, she served other educational institutions, including Coker College, where she was a trustee for 23 years and chairman of the board for two years. She also was a trustee of Belmont Abbey College and a member of the Board of Visitors at Davidson College and Johnson C. Smith University. In 1959 she was president of the Southern Association of Junior Colleges, the first woman to hold that position. Beyond education, she served many civic and cultural organizations, including the Charlotte Symphony, the Charlotte Opera, the Boy Scouts of America, the YWCA, the Children's Nature Museum, Habitat for Humanity, the United Arts Council, and the Charlotte Central Lions Club.
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