Barbara Mitchell Disque, the quintessential Brenau alumna and a visionary leader on the university’s board of trustees, died at her home in Atlanta May 4, six months shy of her 75th birthday.

Disque was one of 16 women in her family to attend Brenau, a string starting with her grandmother and continuing four generations through her daughter, Tricia Sanders Heindel WC ’78 of Atlanta. Although Disque did not complete a degree when she first came to Brenau more than 50 years ago, she did return to the campus, graduating magna cum laude in 1986 with a degree in business administration – three years after she joined the university’s board of trustees.

But her ties to “her class” were strong and unmistakable, says Madeline Mabry Lippman ’53 of Bethany Beach, Del., Disque’s roommate at the Delta Delta Delta house in the early 1950s. “Members of our class stayed together, stayed in touch,” says Lippman. “Although we were geographically scattered, we were very close, and the person who more than anybody made that happen was Barbara.” Disque, Lippmann and two other members of the ’53 class – Betty Stockton Kizer and Rose McLean Whiteside – traveled to France together last year where they took at slow barge trip on the canals of the Alsace.

Lasting Impression
Disque alone and with members of her family left a distinct imprimatur on many facets of the university. Her more visible contributions include driving physical improvements, like the renovation of Lockett-Mitchell Parlour in Yonah Hall and the Disque Lecture Hall in Burd Center. Behind the scenes, she and her late husband, Ken, a CPA, helped provide for the future of the university with establishment of charitable remainder trusts and other direct financial contributions.
“The Brenau family has lost one of its most loyal, loving members,” says Ed Schrader, president of the university. “She will be sorely missed and impossible to replace.”
Barbara Disque often was a study in contradictions – a self-style “city gal” who spoke eloquently about how city lights excited her, but whose “favorite place on earth” was the “kissing porch” at quiet, secluded Conversation Point, her family’s second home on Lake Blue Ridge in the north Georgia mountains. She never lived more than five miles from where she grew up on fashionable West Wesley Drive in Atlanta. She attended E. Rivers Elementary and North Fulton High Schools and for the past 30 years lived in Sherwood Forest, planning to move soon to a retirement community in Peachtree Hills.
Yet at the same time Disque was a world traveler, who visited more than 50 countries and decorated her home with memorabilia from Thailand, Tibet, the Middle East or other countries she visited. And the breast cancer survivor who never complained about ailments pressed her Brenau buddies to take the wine-and-cheese tour to France last year although, because of her medicine regimen, she couldn’t touch the stuff.
Initially a theatre major at Brenau, the young Barbara Mitchell left school to start marriage and family that included daughters, Tricia – who lives in Atlanta – and Lynda Sanders Edmunds of Brentwood, Tenn., and son, Jimmy Sanders, also from Atlanta. Her resume includes many activities that one would expect of a stereotypical southern woman – a member of Sherwood Forest Garden Club, the Atlanta Bach organization. At Covenant Presbyterian Church in Buckhead – where she was baptized as a child, married and, on May 9, eulogized – Disque sang in the choir, helped establish the multi-faith Children of Abraham organization and served as a ruling elder. 

Business and Social Leadership
She stayed extremely loyal to her sorority as a member of the Atlanta Alumnae Chapter of Delta Delta Delta, chapter adviser at Brenau and Emory University, a member of the executive board and a founder of the Tri Delta Foundation Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust.
In a city whose motto was once “what’s good for business is good for Atlanta,” Disque showed she had a knack for business. In 1983 she became a founding director of Metro Bank and, after its acquisition by Region’s Bank in 1996, served as its chairman until her retirement in 1997.
But she also demonstrated a belief that what was good for Atlanta’s people was good for Atlanta. She volunteered at the Atlanta Food Bank, homeless shelters and as a lobbyist to the Georgia General Assembly for Fulton County Commission. She was also a long-time volunteer for the League of Women Voters and served as that organization’s representative to The Human Services Advisory Board of the Atlanta Regional Commission.
The political activist also served on the nonpartisan merit selection panel, tasked with advising the president on prospective judges U.S. District Magistrate Court and also served a treasurer for the highly partisan campaign team for State Rep. Kathy B. Ashe.
But service to Brenau was one of her greatest legacies. The first woman to serve on the Finance and Executive committees of the trustees board, she was inducted into the University Alumni Hall of Fame in 2003.
She was a recipient of numerous distinguished service awards, including the Brenau Outstanding Alumnae Award for Service to Brenau in 1993 and, 10 years later, the Brenau Sullivan Award, which her parent received in 1978. The Lockett-Mitchell Parlour (spelled with an old-fashioned “u” at Disque’s insistence), where her mother and father courted, houses family memorabilia, including the white dress her grandmother wore to May Day celebrations
Disque was buried May 9 at Arlington Memorial Park. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Covenant Presbyterian Church and Brenau University.

Remarks of Ed Schrader, President of Brenau University
at the funeral of Barbara Mitchell Disque

It is sad but true that on occasions like these we southerners tell some of our best stories. As we celebrate the lives and accomplishments of our loved ones through the passing on of these stories, we keep them with us, by re-telling the things they said and did – the things that made them who they are; the things that made them the person we know – not knew; that made them the person we love – not loved.
Our stories make our loved-ones truly immortal.
Barbara Disque, probably more than any other person I know, would appreciate such sentiments, because she loved to hear a good story. More than that, she loved to tell a good story, too.
She told her stories the way she approached every aspect of life – with infectious zeal, with no lack of attention to detail, and often, with a great sense of humor. Every time I see a ladder propped against the side of a building on campus, I recall a favorite “Barbara story.” It relates to her family’s connections to Brenau University.
Many of you probably already know that Barbara was one of 16 women in her family, starting with her grandmother and including her daughter, Tricia, who attended Brenau. Tricia lived in the same room at the old Delta Delta Delta house that her mother had occupied. Barbara purposely had moved into that room in her junior year because her mother, Elisabeth, once lived there as well.
It was against the sill of the second-story window of that room that a rakish young man named Billy Mitchell (Barbara’s description; not mine) propped a ladder, climbed up and, in a classic middle-of-the-night elopement scene, took the young Elisabeth away to become his bride.
Many of the stories Barbara told – and the stories told about her – have something to do with Brenau, an institution she dearly loved.
In her early student days, she was a theatre major. Her sorority sisters will tell you that, because she always seemed to be rehearsing for a play, they never knew when she would come in at night. And because of her penchant for practicing all using stage make-up for her characters in plays, what role she would be playing when she did return.

The role in which I have known her for the last three years is that of one of my most trusted advisors and friends.

She was a person who was never timid about speaking her mind, but whose counsel stemmed from a firm grasp on issues that affected the university and the world. She was a loving, caring human being, a savvy businesswoman and a global visionary. Barbara was the Brenau evangelist to Atlanta business and social leaders. She never lost site of Brenau’s rich traditions, but she also had a vision for the future, for its possibilities and potential. She always sought opportunities to better her school because she sincerely believed that making Brenau better was an opportunity to make her world better.

Barbara left school after her junior year to marry and start a family. In1986, after serving her first 3 years as a Brenau Trustee, Barbara completed her bachelor's degree with a major in business.

Barbara saw Brenau as an important institution in a global society and, wherever Barbara traveled in the world, she was a walking billboard advertisement for Brenau University. She wore Brenau t-shirts, Brenau sweatshirts, Brenau baseball caps. And, you knew if you traveled with her, she made sure you were also properly outfitted with Brenau gear or, at least, carried you cash, credit cards and identification in a Brenau billfold.
Brenau was in her blood, and there is no doubt that the spirit of Barbara Disque will always pulse through the veins of her school.

Now, I’ve alluded to Barbara’s world view. And I think it was unique because Barbara knew the world – up close and personal. She was a world-class traveler. You never knew where she might turn up. The photo with her obituary in today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed Barbara in Thailand. Ask her what she’s been up to and she might well answer, “I’ve just returned from Tibet” or “I’m just back from France” or “I’m off next month to the Middle East.”
In fact, she was planning in June to make a return trip to Israel. When friends expressed some concerns about safety in that region of the world, Barbara sloughed it off. “My children think I’m crazy,” she told them, “but I’m going anyway.”
And, when she traveled, she was a world-class shopper, too. On a barge trip she and several Brenau classmates took last fall on the canals in Alsace, it is reported – and I believe quite accurately – that she carried four empty bags with her to France. When she returned, the bags were not empty.
Barbara personified the joy of living. She relished understanding – and experiencing – the human condition, wherever she found it. When she recognized injustice, hunger, fear, or any opportunity to improve her world, she threw her time and resources into the task.
I think that Barbara lived the creed that Faulkner wrote about – that a real “southern lady” does not forget her obligations to society. Still, for Barbara, serving others was not just a creed or code. It was her nature, an innate part of the DNA of her soul.
Some people might scoff that the term “southern lady” is anachronistic for today’s world. But Barbara was, in my view, the quintessential “steel magnolia.” She was a southern LADY to the core, indeed, but also a progressive southerner, a social activist and an accomplished professional.
She was even a registered “lobbyist” – and we all know she was not too timid to go toe-to-toe with any legislator, any congressman, any governor, or even the president – on issues that were important to her. You always knew where she stood and she never wavered on her convictions.
At times like this, we are tempted to utter funeral-sounding statements like “Brenau has lost one of its greatest assets.” This statement of course is true to its core.
And truly, she will be sorely missed – and impossible to replace.
But, as scripture says, she will be with us always.
Barbara walks the halls and gardens of her school. We have known and still love a great lady. I am honored to remember her as friend. We share the loss expressed here today but are forever thankful for having walked in the glow of Barbara’s life.

Thank you, and God bless you all.    --May 9, 2007