COOKEVILLE, TN — While the moms of Cappa Cappa Capshaw get the balloon arches and the Instagram posts, insiders say the real power in the sisterhood belongs to its legacy chapter: the Cappa Cappa Grammas, a group of eleven grandmothers who meet every Thursday at 11 a.m. at the country club and who, by most estimates, pay for everything.
“We don’t like to talk about money,” said Grammas president Mitzi Whitmore, 74, Blakely’s mother, while signing a check for $40,000 without looking at it. “We just like to talk about what the money is going to be spent on. Every week. In detail.”
The Grammas were founded in 1998 by a group of Capshaw alumni mothers who, upon becoming grandmothers, “simply did not see a reason to stop.” They hold no official position in the PTO but are copied on every email, attend every event, and have reportedly vetoed three spring carnival themes, two principals, and one entire color.
“My mother has opinions about the pumpkins,” confirmed Blakely Whitmore-Vance. “She has opinions about the Napa pumpkins. She thinks they should be from Vermont. It’s a whole thing.”
The Grammas’ influence was most visible during the recent Room Mom runoff, in which turnout reached 110% of eligible families. Election officials later traced the additional votes to the Grammas, who explained they had “voted on behalf of the grandchildren, who are too young to understand what’s at stake.”
Members say the arrangement is simple. The Grammas write the checks, and in return, they ask for very little: a reserved table at every event, final approval on all napkins, a plaque, and the right to tell each mom, privately and at length, how they did it better in 1994.
Asked whether the younger moms ever push back, Mitzi Whitmore smiled and took a sip of champagne. “Oh, honey,” she said. “Who do you think paid for the valet?”