Former Cary Mayor Koka Booth, who championed town’s growth, dies at 91

Koka Booth, the former Cary mayor who ushered in the western Wake County town’s early growth boom, has died at 91.

Booth served as mayor from 1987 to 1999 when Cary started to shift from a small farm town to the second-largest city in Wake County.

A West Virginia native, Booth arrived in Cary in the 1970s with his family when the town had just over 6,000 people and worked at SAS Institute. He joined the Cary Town Council in 1978, when he was appointed to fill a vacant seat.

As mayor, Booth helped Cary grow by the thousands and helped bring a YMCA and a conference center to the town. He also pushed for the development of Fred G. Bond Metro Park, which at 310 acres is one of the county’s largest municipal parks.

Koka Booth Amphitheatre on Regency Parkway was built in 2001 and later named to honor the former mayor.

“When you have zero growth and you’re standing still, you’re going backwards,” Booth said when asked about growth in a 2004 interview in “Documenting the American South,” a digital collection sponsored by the University Library at UNC.

“You either go forward or you go backwards, he explained. “Now sometime you may go too fast and maybe a little too slow, but you always have to work at going forward. People blame me for this and I’ll take that blame, but I still think it’s better to go forward than to go backwards.”

Booth’s death was announced Tuesday by current Mayor Harold Weinbrecht, who ordered all flags lowered for 12 days, one for each year of Booth’s service as mayor.

“I extend our heartfelt condolences to Mayor Booth’s family and thank them for sharing so much of him with us,” Weinbrecht said. “We all benefited from his enthusiastic efforts to help make Cary the wonderful place it is today.”

To further honor the former mayor, Weinbrecht proclaimed the day of Booth’s funeral to be a day of remembrance in Cary.

A champion for growth

Booth served on the Town Council for a total of 22 years.

When he first arrived in 1971, Cary had “two doctors, I think we had two traffic lights,” he said. “There was not a sidewalk from Ashworth Drugs to the elementary school.”

At that time, Cary’s tax base was 9% non-residential and 91% residential but soon, the town began to see new developments like Kildaire Farms and along Maynard Road.

Booth’s time on the council also brought about changes to the town’s water and wastewater system. Before Cary had its own treatment plants, the town relied on Raleigh.

“Today, it is not only that we own the keys, it is very cost-effective for us to do that too,” Booth said in the interview. “I think it was two of the major decisions, that and Cary Parkway and Maynard Road loop being completed are some of the highlights of infrastructure that just made us a really different place to live.”

Cary is now home to over 184,000 residents and is the seventh-largest municipality in the state.

On Tuesday, residents shared an outpouring of love and remembrance for Booth on social media.

U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, who represents the state’s second congressional district, which includes Wake County, said she was “heartbroken.”

“He helped make Cary the thriving and bustling town that it is today, and his legacy will live on,” Ross said.

Terry “Doc” Throne wrote on Facebook that Booth appointed him to the now defunct Cable TV Commission in Cary and “thereby drawing me into small town politics.”

“Through his support of my first run for (town) council, to and including the many ‘informative’ talks we shared in his office, of course (if you knew him you know what I mean), to his involvement at the ground level with parades, town decorations and clean streets, make no mistake he was the Mayor,” Throne wrote.

Booth had a stroke in 2004 and spent his last years with his wife, Blanche, tending to his yard and occasionally playing golf at MacGregor Downs Country Club.

There will be a viewing for Booth on Friday at the Brown-Wynne Funeral Home on SE Maynard Road in Cary, according to an online obituary.