Bost, Annie Kizer

Thomas S. Morgan, 1979

27 Oct. 1883–6 Sept. 1961

Annie Kizer Bost, commissioner of the North Carolina State Board of Charities and Public Welfare and an active participant in women's clubs, civic work, and the Democratic party, was born in Enochville, the daughter of Robert Graham and Cora Belk Shipman Kizer. Her father was superintendent of the Rowan County public schools. Mrs. Bost attended Salisbury public schools and private schools before her entry into the Women's College of North Carolina, where she was graduated in 1903.

After graduation, she taught in the public schools of Salisbury until her marriage in 1909 to William Thomas Bost, a newspaper reporter from Salisbury. She and her husband settled in Raleigh in 1912, where he soon became and served as the Raleigh correspondent for the Greensboro Daily News for thirty-seven years. The Bosts had two sons, William Thomas, Jr., and John Shipman.

In Raleigh, Mrs. Bost became active in civic affairs and club work. She was a trustee of Olivia Raney Library beginning in 1920. She was president of the Raleigh Woman's Club, the largest in the state, from 1921 to 1923, and participated in the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, holding the post of state executive secretary from 1927 to 1930.

In 1930, when Kate Burr Johnson resigned as commissioner of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare, Governor O. Max Gardner, a close friend of W. T. Bost, appointed Mrs. Bost commissioner. She therefore presided over the welfare program in North Carolina during the years of New Deal transition into a major welfare establishment. In that critical period she fought successfully to have the new federal welfare programs incorporated into the existing welfare department. She continued in the post until 1944, gaining a national reputation as one of the few women state welfare directors in the United States.

Mrs. Bost became a charter member of the American Public Welfare Association when it was founded in 1930. An active member of the North Carolina Conference for Social Service, she served as president in 1937–38. She was vice-chairman of the National Council of State Public Welfare Administrators in 1941–42.

After her retirement from the welfare administration, she continued to serve in a public role. Governor Joseph M. Broughton, Jr., appointed her to the North Carolina Unemployment Compensation Commission (now the Employment Security Commission), where she served from 1944 to 1949. She edited the North Carolina Clubwoman from 1951 to 1954.

Among her other services and distinctions, Mrs. Bost was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1944, a trustee of the Women's College, state chairman of Tuberculosis Seal sales in North Carolina in 1956, and a member of the executive board of the state legislative council. She received an LL.D. from Women's College in 1942. A building at the Hoffman School for Boys was named in her honor in 1955, and a scholarship in her name was established at The University of North Carolina.

Mrs. Bost was a charter member and active participant in the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church of Raleigh, where her funeral was held. She was interred in Oakwood Cemetery of Raleigh.