Award. He also helped organize the
Murfreesboro Historical Association.Vann was
a former member of the USS North Carolina
Battleship Commission. He served in the Navy
in WWII. Ruth Whitson (’ 46 ABJO), 82,
of Asheville; March 26, 2008. Whitson retired
as program administrator of the Buncombe
County Department of Social Services. Earlier,
she had worked for the Caswell Messenger and
been editor of The Alamance News and The
Burlington Journal.
SAVE
the
DATE
May 8– 10, 2009
Class of ’ 59
50th Reunion
’50s Melvarene Johnson Adair
(’ 51 AB, ’ 76 MSW) of
Raleigh has established a
charitable gift annuity with the UNC Foundation, directing nearly $1.4 million to the UNC
School of Social Work. Adair began her career
in the 1950s as a social worker in some of
North Carolina’s most rural communities. The
funds will create a $1 million endowment for
the Johnson-Howard-Adair Distinguished Professorship, with the balance contributed to an
existing scholarship established in her mother’s
honor by Adair’s son, Kenneth Howard, to
attract more students to the profession of social
work and encourage research and teaching
about the impact of poverty. Oliver Wendell Alphin (’ 58 BSBA, ’ 61 LLBJD) of Surf
City has created the Reevis S. and Barbara
Gilliam Alphin Scholarship Fund in honor of
his brother Reevis S. Alphin (’ 51 AB) and
sister-in-law Barbara Gilliam Alphin (’ 54
BSPHR) of Sanford. The fund, which will
provide need-based aid to students from Lee,
Duplin or Pender counties, was given as part
of the Carolina First Campaign. Initial awards
will be made for the 2009-10 academic year.
James Tully Beatty (’ 57 AB) of Charlotte
was a featured speaker for the 2008 Special
Olympics Spring Games of Mecklenburg
County. Beatty, a former Olympian and the
first person to run a mile in less than four
minutes indoors, is a former member of the
GAA Board of Directors (1967-70). Sally
Trowbridge Blackwelder (’ 53) of Hickory
has received an honorary doctor of humane
letters degree from Lenoir-Rhyne College.
Blackwelder has been a member of the Service
League of Hickory for 53 years, a member of
the board of the Catawba Valley Arts Council,
a founding member of Northminster Presbyterian Church, and a volunteer for Catawba
Valley Hospital and the Red Cross. Dennis
Eugene Daye (’ 56 AB, ’ 58 MRP) of Columbia, S.C., has received the Volunteer of the Year
Award from the S.C. Association of Non-Profit
Homes for the Aging. James Gooden
Exum Jr. (’ 57 AB) of Greensboro was presented with the Distinguished Service Award
by the Greensboro Bar Association. Exum
served as chief justice of the N.C. Supreme
Court (1986-94) and previously as an associate
justice. He now leads the appellate practice
group at Smith Moore LLP. He has served on
the GAA Board of Directors as a director
(1965-68), vice president (1969-70), president
(1987-88) and board counsel (1998-2001).
Vincent Anthony Grimaldi (’ 53 ABEd, ’ 57
MEd) of Medford Lakes, N.J., has been
inducted into the City All-Star Chapter of the
Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. Grimaldi
was a UNC basketball team co-captain and a
member of the 1957 NCAA championship
coaching staff. H. Parks Helms (’ 58, ’ 59
AB; ’ 61 LLB) of Charlotte has received the Dr.
I. Beverly Lake Sr. Public Service Award from
the N.C. Bar Association Foundation. Helms,
serving his eighth term as a county commissioner for Mecklenburg County where he is
vice chair, is a member of the law firm Helms,
Henderson & Associates PA. W. Seymour
Holt (’ 52 BSPHR) of Indianapolis represented
UNC at the inauguration of France A. Cordova as president of Purdue University. John
Hosea Kerr III (’ 58 AB, ’ 61 LLBJD) of
Goldsboro has received the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Tuscarora Boy Scout
Council. Kerr, a state senator since 1993 and
previously a member of the N.C. House, is a
former member of the GAA Board of Directors (2001-04). Eugene Leslie Roberts Jr.
(’ 54 ABJO) of New York was the speaker at
the annual dinner hosted by UNC-Greensboro
Friends of the Library. Roberts’ topic was
“Race, the Press and the South.” He and Hank
Klibanoff won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for
their book, The Race Beat: the Press, the Civil
Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation,
and Roberts was profiled in the
September/October 2007 issue of the Review.
Leonard Robert Rosenbluth (’ 57 AB)
represented UNC at the inauguration of Wilson G. Bradshaw as president of Florida Gulf
Coast University. John Lassiter Sanders
(’ 50 AB, ’ 54 JD) of Chapel Hill has received
the 2008 John McNeill Smith Jr. Constitutional Rights and Responsibilities Section
Award from the N.C. Bar Association. Sanders
was director of the UNC Institute of Government from 1962 to 1973 and 1979 to 1992.
He retired from the faculty in 1995. C.
Dixon Spangler Jr. (’ 54 BSBA) of Charlotte
and his wife, Meredith, have been recognized
for their lifetime support of the UNC System
with the naming of the UNC General Administration building and annex in their honor.
The main UNC System building has been
renamed the C.D. Spangler Jr. Building. The
connecting facility is now the Meredith Riggs
Spangler Building. Collectively, the buildings
will be known as the Spangler Center. C.D.
Spangler served as president of the UNC System from 1986 to 1997 and retired as president
emeritus. Charles Barry Spillane (’ 57
BSBA) of Savannah, Ga., has retired as a business tax consultant with Charles B. Spillane &
Co. Bobby M. Wagner (’ 57 AB) of Welcome served as grand marshal for the 2008
Welcome Easter Parade. In 1948, Wagner and
his wife, Crissy, hosted the same parade as king
and queen.
■ obituaries
Warren D. Bayless (’ 56), 77, of Cathedral
City, Calif.;Aug. 29, 2007. Bayless was president of a film production company in New
York after working as a literary agent. At
UNC, he was active with Playmakers. Cora
Paul Bomar (’ 50 MA), 94, of Greensboro;
March 18, 2008. Bomar retired as associate
professor emerita at UNC-Greensboro, following a career providing library services to
schools in North Carolina. She began her
career in education as teacher-librarian in a
one-room school in rural Tennessee. As she
finished advanced degrees, she joined the N.C.
Department of Public Instruction, where she
helped develop the state’s school libraries. In
1966, she was appointed the first director of
the Division of Educational Media. Three
years later, all secondary schools and more
than 98 percent of elementary schools had a
central library. She worked in support of federal legislation and was one of a small group
invited to witness the signing of the Library
Services and Construction Act by President
Johnson. In 1969, she joined the faculty of the
Department of Library Science and Technology,
School of Education, UNC-G and taught
summer school at Carolina. After retiring, she
was asked to return as interim chair of the
department. In WWII, she was a production
supervisor in an arsenal plant. Charles
Michael Bonjean (’ 59 MA, ’ 63 PhD), 72, of
Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.; Feb. 20, 2008.
Bonjean’s academic career was primarily as
professor of sociology at the University of
Texas in Austin. He received a teaching excellence award, was president of the Southwestern
Sociological Association and the author or editor of seven books. He was named the Hogg
Professor of sociology. At UNC, he belonged
to Alpha Kappa Delta. Donald Robert
Boring (’ 52 MEd), 81, of Cupertino, Calif.;
March 15, 2008. Boring retired as director of
marketing for Lockheed Martin Corp. Earlier, he
had been a professional baseball player, playing
for teams that included Appalachian League
of Elizabethton, the New York Giants’ farm
