Sybil Skakle: Family, Education, and Community

One of our oldest alums shares her story with a profession that makes her proud

Story by Carrie Creasy | photo courtesy of Sybil Skakle | Published February 13, 2024

Sybil (Austin) Skakle, BSPhar ’49, was born in Hatteras, North Carolina in January of 1926. Sybil came from very determined people: dedicated to family, education, and community. In her family, she is the fourth of five children who all surpassed the 6th grade level of education available to their parents, a testament to the hard work of their father, an entrepreneur, and their mother, a teacher.

Upon graduation from Hatteras High School in 1943, Sybil consulted her older sister Josephine, who had graduated from Carolina in 1941. Josephine suggested Sybil was “too boy crazy to enjoy women’s college,” so Sybil chose between pharmacy or nursing – the two options available to women during that time.

Sybil’s pharmacy school headshot

Sybil began pharmacy school at UNC in 1945 at the conclusion of World War II, a time when many veterans became students in Chapel Hill. Sybil remembers students wearing clothing that had been part of their uniforms. Donald Edmund Skakle, UNC class of 1950, was one of those students. Just one week following his discharge from the US Coast Guard, Don arrived to Chapel Hill from Massachusetts on the GI Bill of Rights benefits and ready to play tennis for Coach John Kenfield.

It was October in the chow line at Lenoir Dining Hall when Sybil noticed the “tall, handsome man who spoke with a pleasant northern accent.” She was very embarrassed when she asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance and he already had a date, but on her 20th birthday, he invited her to see a movie. With a grin, Sybil recalls “I spent too much time with that handsome fellow. My grades slipped and I never made the dean’s list again.” Sybil and Donald were married in February of 1947. Less than two years later, their first son wore a Carolina blue suit to Sybil’s graduation.

Sybil and Don determinedly focused on family, education, and community after two more boys were added to their brood. Don played varsity tennis at Carolina for five years and later coached in Chapel Hill for 22 years. Sybil worked hard to accomplish the nine months of clinical work necessary to obtain her pharmacy license. Banks D. Kerr, BSPhar, ’43, offered her a job at Legget-Rexall Drugstore in Grensboro. She relished the opportunity to work with him in the years before he built 97 Kerr Drug locations throughout the region.

Sybil was offered a myriad of ways to use her degree to serve her community. She did part-time work evaluating the validity of drugs for medical insurance claims. She did relief work for pharmacists on vacation or medical leave. When she realized she was working more than 40 hours a week, she requested full-time employment as a hospital pharmacist in Durham at Watts Hospital.

She loved the work “because of the people. We went through a lot of changes together.” Among these changes was the transition to computers as the means for entering orders. Sybil also witnessed a remarkable increase in female pharmacists during her employment. Only one woman worked alongside her at the very beginning, but more and more young women graduated from Carolina and joined the staff during her 23 years there. Sybil loved those years. She contributed to the NC Pharmaceutical Association, the Pharmacy Alumni Association, and served one year as president of the NC Pharmacy Auxiliary.

Sybil, widowed in 1980 and retired in 1990, spends much of her time writing books. Her eighth book is prepared to publish and will join a novel, two poetry books, history and other memoir stories already published. All three of Don and Sybil’s sons graduated from Carolina. She has a daughter-in-law who graduated from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, a grandson who is a doctor, and a granddaughter who will graduate from medical school in May. This spring, Sybil will welcome her fourth great grandchild.

Sybil is proud of the family she and Don built, the education she received at Carolina, and her present community. She is honored to call herself a pharmacist. “I am very proud of the pharmacy profession,” she reflects. “I like the reputation we have.”