Durham, N.C., from infancy until age 14. Her family moved to Long Island in the middle of her eighth-grade year, a fairly traumatic event for a shy teenager. “I didn’t really fit in with any of the cliques,” she says, so she sought friendship with other transplants and took refuge in dance classes. While most of her high school classmates headed to college in the Northeast, Nancy knew she wanted to head back South. A classmate who’d visited his sister, Candace Martin ’69, at Roanoke gave the College rave reviews — particularly the social life — and Nancy was hooked.
physics lab partner, sophomore John Mulheren, as he passed by Bartlett Hall. Known on campus as “Slick,” John was a character who had already developed a reputation as a world-class prankster. Three months later, Slick walked up to Nancy on a Friday evening and asked her out. Friends were puzzled by the attraction between the two. “I was a very quiet, shy, only child,” Nancy says. “People asked me, ‘Why did you go out with Slick?’ and I said, ‘Gosh, I was afraid to say no.’ ” Kathy Harkness ’72, a Phi Mu sister of Nancy’s and current vice chair of the
to New York City. Nancy graduated a semester early and took a job selling flight insurance at John F. Kennedy International Airport. At the end of August, “Out of the blue, John said, ‘Marry me this weekend or I will never go out with you again,’ ” Nancy recalls. Her parents were out of town, and she didn’t want to deprive them of seeing their only child get married. John agreed to wait another week and they married Sept. 10, 1972.
Giving back By the age of only 25, John Mulheren, a self-taught trader, astounded Wall Street
Above, college days. At immediate right, John and Nancy Mulheren with Dean Donald Sutton ’54 at Alumni Weekend in May 1979. At far right, the Mulherens during a visit to the Roanoke College campus in the early 2000s.
Changing times When Nancy started at Roanoke, girls could only wear skirts unless granted “slack permission.” Men weren’t allowed in the women’s dormitories and a live-in dorm mother enforced the rules. Freshmen received demerits for not making their beds and had to be in by 10 p.m. on weeknights. “Between fall 1968 and spring 1972, the whole world changed,” says Leslie Nunnally Christopher ’72, one of Nancy’s suitemates. “It was the fastest four years of social change, both on campus and in the U.S.” In the first semester of her freshman year, her roommate Priscilla Mohan Prosser ’72, introduced Nancy to her 14
“Marry me this weekend or I will never go out with you again.”— John Mulheren Board of Trustees, recalls, “They were a pretty unique couple. Nancy was extroverted and friendly, but she didn’t attract attention to herself. John was the big-figure person. He was ‘out there.’ ” Harkness describes the pair as “very attuned to each other. She was his best friend and confidant; they were an inseparable couple at school. It was always Slick and Nancy — you knew they’d be together.” John graduated in 1971 and headed
by rising to managing partner at Merrill Lynch. Soon after, he and Nancy began giving back to their alma mater on an epic scale. One of their first large donations was in honor of associate professor and track coach Homer Bast ’79. The following year, they contributed in honor of Donald Sutton Sr. ’54, then dean of students, beginning a practice of making contributions to pay tribute to faculty and staff who influenced their lives at Roanoke. Roanoke College Magazine