Alyssa Starnes and Kyle Bowker
Alyssa Starnes and Kyle Bowker are NC State graduates who were married in 2016. In lieu of a wedding registry, the couple chose to create an endowment fund to honor the courageous and generous spirit of Alyssa’s belated mother, Therese Marie Starnes. The couple hopes to keep Therese’s memory alive thorugh an annual fundraiser benefitting the scholarship.
Impact
Therese Marie Starnes was many things to many people. She was a mother, sister, volunteer, friend, mentor, and the list goes on. Therese lived by the values of selflessness, faith, practicality, happiness, fairness, honesty and humility. Alyssa and her yournger sister, Sarah, adored their fun loving mother who made Halloween costumes and treated them like royalty on birthdays. During Alyssa’s first week at NC State, Therese lost her second courageous battle with breast cancer at the young age of 43. Therese should be remembered not for her illness, but instead for the extremely charitable woman she was, for her intelligence, loyalty to friends and for her strong work ethic.