Candidate Biography (submitted by candidate):

I grew up on a farm on the eastern shore of Maryland working in the fields since 8 years old. I attended public school where I played football and went to Syracuse University on a football scholarship. After an injury, I transferred to the University of Maryland from which I graduated in 1957. While waiting to enter the Air Force, I taught public school. I served in the Air Force on active duty from 1960-63 and was promoted to captain in the Air Force Reserve. I married, am the father of three children and five grandchildren.

After leaving the Air Force, I worked in the U. S. Senate and attended Georgetown University at night. In 1964 I entered Duke University from which I graduated in 1968. In that same year, I began teaching History at UNC Chapel Hill. Over the course of the next 19 years, I taught over 8,000 students. In 1987 I went to Hampden Sydney as president and in 1990 came to UNC Wilmington as chancellor. My service as chancellor was through 2003 after which I taught three more years.

I have served on numerous boards and commissions including the Coastal Resources Commission, The Nature Conservancy and as chair of the Rural Internet Access Authority. Over the years I worked with UNC-TV, first doing an international affairs program called Globe Watch and then a series of environmental documentaries. I am the author of three books and a number of articles. I currently write a monthly column for Metro Magazine.

I am running for public office for the first time because I believe North Carolina faces significant challenges and I believe I can be of help in surmounting them. Among other things, I served on the Government Performance Committee and have gone through the state budget line item by line item. Consequently, I feel I know where the money is.

Obviously, the challenges this year and the next and possibly the next will be to intelligently cut the state budget without doing irreparable harm to our future. My historic training tells me we will come out of this recession/depression and when we do, we will need intelligent workers and an adequate infrastructure if we are to successfully compete in the global economy.

Fear seems to dominate much of the political discourse and in my mind fear plus anger are not a good formula combination for dealing with these sensitive issues.