Anne Marie Scarborough Philbin, 79, died unexpectedly at her home on Thursday, March 9, 2000.

Wife of Brigadier General Tobias R. Philbin, Jr. of Lexington, and mother of two sons, Tobias R. Philbin, III and L. Guy Philbin, both of Alexandria, she is survived by her sister, Mrs. Marguerite May Sullivan of Charlottesville, Virginia and her grandchildren, Joan Linda Philbin, Kristin Diane Philbin and Alexander Tobias Philbin, all of Alexandria.

Anne Philbin was born April 2, 1920. A native Baltimorean, she graduated from Notre Dame of Maryland Preparatory School in 1938 and from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in 1942. She made a career in radio, public relations and newspapers. During World War II, she was a reporter for the Baltimore News-Post. A journalist and author, she published The Past and the Promised, a history of the College of Notre Dame in 1959. A staff writer for The Evening Sun, she was that paper's first consumer action columnist and later its first federal news columnist. She was instrumental in pioneering the concept of a lifestyle section, formerly know as the "women's page" or "society section." National Chairman for Public Relations for the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, she was writing Daughters of Distinction, a monthly feature profiling prominent members at the time of her death. She held several national, state, and local offices and received the DAR's Golden Key Award for outstanding achievement for her handbook The ABC's of Public Relations. Anne Philbin traveled extensively as an Army wife, first to the Soviet Union for the State Departments's information service in Moscow and later to London, Berlin, Nuremberg, and Washington, D.C. Her volunteer and alumnae work spanned fifty years. Secretary and Regent of the Notre Dame Alumnae's Washington Club, Vice Regent of the Washington Circle, she was a member of the National Press Club, Delta Epsilon Sigma, the Army Navy Chapter, the English Speaking Union, and the American Association of University Women. She was immediate past president of the Liberty Hall Chapter of the National Society of Colonial Dames XVII Century in Lexington.

A funeral mass will be held at 10 a.m. Monday, March 13, 2000 at the St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Lexington with Father Alan Lipscomb officiating. Burial will be at 11 a.m. Thursday, March 16, 2000 in the Arlington National Cemetery. The family will receive friends from 6 to 7 p.m. Sunday night at the Harrison Funeral Home, Lexington.

Roanoke Times, VA, March 11, 2000