Dr. Cathy Randall discusses a lifetime of service to Alabama, friendships with Ivey and Britt

Over the last century or so, Alabama seems to have developed a knack for producing strong female leaders.

Helen Keller, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, and Harper Lee have all been shrouded in international fame and glory. Today, our governor, junior U.S. senator, state Supreme Court Chief Justice, and Public Service Commission president are all women.

The members of this pantheon of females who have and continue to shape Alabama have had books written about them, won Presidential Medals of Freedom and a Pulitzer Prize, and have had statues of themselves placed in the U.S. Capitol Building. In 2003, Keller’s likeness was even memorialized on the U.S. Mint’s Alabama state quarter.

Still, there are some influential female Alabamians who do not possess, nor do they seek, the fame of their colleagues. Dr. Catherine J. Randall of Tuscaloosa is undoubtedly one of those women.

Called “Cathy” by her friends, Randall has amassed an enormous pile of resume lines that could put most Alabamians – both male and female – to shame: two Ph.D. degrees from The University of Alabama (UA), former director of the Honors Programs at UA, former news anchor at CBS-affiliate WCFT-TV, member and former chairman of the Alabama Academy of Honor (the 100 most outstanding living Alabamians), former national president of Mortar Board, Inc., member and former president of the American Village’s Board of Directors, former member of the Alabama Power Company’s Board of Directors, member of the Board of Advisors for Mercedes-Benz USI, and former director of Alabama Girls State.

Those are just a few examples of her service to Alabama. She’s also been recognized by UA as one of the institution’s top 31 female graduates of the 20th century, is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame, and is Chairman of the Board of Pettus Randall Holdings, LLC.

Her name also now adorns the newly-renovated 15,000 square-foot Catherine and Pettus Randall Welcome Center at her alma mater, as well as UA’s Catherine J. Randall Premier Award and Randall Research Scholars Program – the former Computer-Based Honors (CBH) program, renamed in her honor.

Throughout her decades-long career, Randall has become a patron of dozens of organizations and a role model for hundreds of young people. However, despite that enormous impact, she seems to be quietly uncomfortable in the spotlight.

“This is very difficult,” Randall said, half-jokingly, at the end of an interview with Yellowhammer News at her home, situated just off the banks of the Black Warrior River in Tuscaloosa.

“I didn’t realize that it was going to be ‘me, me, me.’ I thought we were going to be talking about some interesting topics,” she continued, exuding her characteristic humility.

Born and raised in Birmingham, Randall credits much of her success to how she was brought up.

“I just had the most wonderful family you could possibly imagine. I had two younger sisters and parents who, not only affirmed everything, but also did not perceive any glass ceiling,” Randall said.

“I grew up in the 50s and 60s, and there was a pretty strong glass ceiling for women back then, but I never thought that there was something that I could not at least try to do. I could not have had a more idyllic childhood.”

One day in her junior year of high school, Randall remembered, she was called to a student-teacher’s classroom for a short meeting that would change her life.

“I thought, ‘My goodness, why am I being called to her room?’ We had all heard about her because she had been so outstanding in college, but I was not in one of her classes,” Randall said.

“I walked in, and she said, ‘You’re going to represent this school at Girls State, and you’re going to run for governor.’ And, I said, ‘Yes, ma’am’ – because that’s what you always say to Kay Ivey.”

When Randall got to Girls State, Ivey was her counselor, and she was elected governor. She then went on to be elected president of Girls Nation. The rest, Randall says, is history for her.

“Her encouragement to run for governor, her encouragement to all of the delegates who were there to be committed to doing whatever we could to make Alabama a better state, was essential.”

Both Dr. Randall and Governor Ivey went on to serve in various capacities for Alabama Girls State for decades, which helped to foster their close friendship that has lasted even longer. When Ivey was sworn in as governor in both 2019 and 2023, she called on Randall to hold her Bible as she took the oath of office.

Asked for a statement on her relationship with Randall, Governor Ivey told Yellowhammer News, in part, “Cathy is a caring person and very generous with her time, talents and treasures. I am proud to call her my longtime friend.”

When the time came for Randall to graduate from high school and choose an undergraduate path, she was particularly drawn to a computer-based honors research program that was just getting started at UA, the first of its kind in the nation for undergraduate students.

“I was interning in the United States Senate when the word came that they were starting this program, and my daddy sent me this brochure about the Computer-Based Honors Program that had been sent to me at home, asking me to apply,” Dr. Randall recalled.

On the back of the application, Randall’s father had written a short note: “Cathy, computers are going to be everywhere. You ought to think about this.”

After coming back home to Alabama for an interview with program leaders, Randall was selected as one of ten scholars, five of whom, she will note, were women.

Although Randall’s friendship with Kay Ivey has spanned decades, the future governor was not the most important connection that came out of her time at Girls State – that distinction would end up belonging to her Alabama Boys State gubernatorial equivalent, Pettus Randall, whom she first met at the University.

“One of the [Girls State] counselors owned a bank in east Alabama, and when she would come to Tuscaloosa – she was a devoted Alabama fan – she would host dinner for the daughters of her customers back at her bank, and this particular January, she included me,” Randall remembered.

It was her sophomore year in Tuscaloosa, and Randall had been asked by Governor Albert Brewer to chair his campaign’s youth wing. Seizing an opportunity to recruit new members, she began speaking to her fellow dinner guests about her work with the Brewer campaign.

“She kind of interrupted us at one point, and she said, ‘Cathy, do you know who you need to get involved in that campaign? You need to get Pettus Randall involved.’ Pettus was the first Alabamian ever elected Boys Nation President, and I was the first Alabamian elected Girls Nation President.”

“I don’t remember another bite I ate or another word that was spoken. I couldn’t get back to my dorm fast enough to call him,” Randall said, laughingly.

Mr. Randall invited her to lunch to discuss the campaign, and the two were married a year later.

After college, Randall began to focus on family, but her life took another turn one afternoon after a board meeting when a UA administrator mentioned to her that they would soon be looking for an interim director of the CBH Program that had first drawn her to the Druid City.

“I should have paid the University for the privilege of working with these phenomenal students,” Randall said, “I owe the University an enormous amount.”

Although she was initially brought on only as a part-time interim director of the CBH Program, Randall eventually became the director of the entire University Honors Program. She stayed with the UA Honors College for 25 years before retiring from the role in 2004.

One student Randall mentored during her years on UA’s faculty has become one of the most influential women in Alabama and, one might argue, the nation: U.S. Senator Katie Boyd Britt (R-Montgomery).

Perhaps predictably, the two women first met when Britt, then Katie Elizabeth Boyd of Enterprise, won the governorship at Alabama Girls State in 1999, some 32 years after Randall held the top job in the program.

Later, when the future United States Senator chose to attend the University of Alabama for her undergraduate studies and pledged Chi Omega, Randall’s sorority, Randall knew that she was witnessing the rise of someone special.

Asked what she has learned from her relationship with Britt, Randall remembered a quote she first heard from Ivey by the famed 19th-century author, Edward Everett Hale: “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.”

“That is definitely true of Senator Britt,” Randall said, “What an inspiration for high school and college students, when she lists [in her 2023 memoir, God Calls Us to Do Hard Things] the times that she tried and something didn’t turn out the way she had wanted it to turn out.”

“But, did that stop her? Never. Never.”

“I could keep you here for a week, telling you things I have learned from her and Kay,” Randall said.

In a statement provided to Yellowhammer News for this story, Senator Britt said:

“Dr. Randall’s many accomplishments and contributions to the Tuscaloosa community and the entire state of Alabama are only outshined by her generosity, humility, and servant leadership. Her mentorship has been invaluable throughout the many years I’ve known her. From my time as a student at the University of Alabama to now as a United States Senator, I have been able to count on her for incredible, sound advice and unwavering support. Her legacy and remarkable career are unparalleled, and I am truly fortunate to consider her a friend.”

Despite possessing a resume that would resemble a short book and friendships with dozens of the most important people in Alabama, Randall says her most rewarding role has been that of wife to her late husband and mother to three highly successful children.

Randall’s oldest daughter, Jaynie Randall Lilley, is an attorney with degrees from Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. Kate Randall Danella, her middle child, is the head of Regions Bank’s Consumer Banking Group and has been listed among the 25 most powerful women in banking by American Banker magazine for consecutive years.

Danella holds degrees from Vanderbilt, Harvard Business School, and Cambridge. Randall’s only son, H. Pettus Randall IV, is managing director of acquisitions at WCP Vitality Living and is based in Nashville. He served as Student Government president at Princeton before obtaining graduate degrees from Stanford Business School and Oxford.

Asked about her personal style on parenting and mentorship, Randall highlighted three points of advice, though her humility, once again, made her hesitant to give her words that label.

“Be excellent. Be not just the best that you can be; be the best that there is,” Randall said. “Be grateful. Be thankful for every blessing you receive.”

“Be ready to say ‘yes.’ If someone thinks you can do something, don’t let your own doubts get in the way.”

Riley McArdle is a contributor for Yellowhammer News. He is a Junior majoring in Political Science at the University of Alabama and currently serves as Chairman of the College Republican Federation of Alabama. You can follow him on X @rileykmcardle.