Harry Ransom CenterThe University of Texas at Austin

Mary Margaret Farabee

Austin, TX

As a volunteer Mary Margaret Farabee has helped initiate a wide variety of projects in Austin including the founding of the Texas Book Festival in 1996 with First Lady of Texas Laura Bush. In 2004, she received the TBF Bookend Award. She also played a leadership role in restoration of the historic Paramount Theater; establishment of Philsophers' Rock, a statue of noted Texas writers J. Frank Dobie, Roy Bedichek, and Walter Prescott Webb in Zlker Park; and the organization of the Charles W. Moore Foundation to preserve architect Moore's home and studios as a Center for the Study of Place. In 1996, she was awarded an Honorary Membership in the Texas Society of Architects.

She served a two-year term as president of the Heritage Society of Austin and six-year board terms with Peoples Community Clinic and the Laby Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. In April 1998, she was honored as the Austin Board of Realtors' Most Worthy Citizen being recognized in fields of the performing and literary arts, historic preservation, environmental causes, and human services.

During her professional career, Mary Margaret worked in the fields of business development and public relations, including Volunteer Coordinator at Seton Medical Center and as Vice-President of Development at KLRU-TV, Austin's PBS affiliate.

She currently serves on the Advisory Councils of the UT Harry Ransom Center, UT Press, the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University, and co-chairs the Annual MOLLY National Investigative Journalism Prize Dinner of the Texas Democracy Foundation.

She received a B.A. degree in Plan II from The University of Texas in 1961 and an M.A. degree in American history in 1968. Her husband, Ray Farabee, now retired, served as State Senator from Wichita Falls for 13 years and then served as General Council for the University of Texas System for 15 years. She has one daughter, Patricia Carlson Albright, who lives in Austin.