Mr. Lowance was an executive assistant to the governor and commissioner of administration for the commonwealth of Virginia.
He was born in Greenville, West Virginia, and attended public school in Salem. He entered Roanoke College in the fall of 1927, where he became student government president and a charter member of the Blue Key honor society. He graduated in 1931.
Mr. Lowance began working as a reporter for the Roanoke Times while an undergraduate, continuing until 1936. He was editor for the Associated Press in Richmond from 1936 to 1947, with a three-year leave of absence during World War II to serve with the U.S. Army.
In 1947, he was named executive secretary to Governor William Tuck. He continued in this capacity for Governors John Battle, Thomas B. Stanley, and J. Lindsay Almond. From 1958 to 1962, he was assistant president of the Medical College of Virginia.
Mr. Lowance returned to the statehouse as executive assistant to Governors Albertis Harrison and Mills Godwin. He became Virginia's first commissioner of administration in 1966.
Carter O. Lowance received the Roanoke College Medal in 1967.