honored at 4-H Gala
Several prominent North
Carolinians were honored at the 2003 North
Carolina 4-H Development Fund’s Lifetime Achievement Awards
Gala on March 18 at Charlotte’s Ballantyne Resort Hotel.
They included Elaine Marshall,
North Carolina Secretary of State; John Belk, businessman, former Charlotte
mayor and son of Belk department store founder William H. Belk; Dr.
Daniel McFadden, a Nobel Laureate in economics; and the Benjamin P.
Jenkins II family, Cooperative Extension
and business leaders.
The annual gala raised $248,000,
said Sharon Rowland, executive director, N.C. 4-H Development Fund.
Marshall credited her 4-H
experiences with starting her career in the right direction.
In introducing Marshall,
N.C. State University Chancellor
Marye Anne Fox proudly showed off a circuit board lapel badge with tiny
blinking red lights that she constructed earlier at one of the 4-H Showcase
of Excellence exhibits.
“Again tonight,”
Fox said, “I learned what Elaine and I and all teachers know: the
power that is in all young people. As teachers, mentors, sponsors and
donors, we must each work to unleash that latent power and transform
it into kinetic energy — power that is in motion, power at work,
power that leads to positive impacts for youth, their families and their
communities, and our entire great state,” she said.
Marshall, who grew up in
a rural Maryland farm family, is a classic example of Fox’s thesis.
Her mother was her 4-H Club’s volunteer leader, and Marshall was
immersed early on in 4-H. Marshall earned a B.S. in textiles and clothing
from the University of Maryland, then moved to North Carolina and began
teaching high school home economics in Lenoir County. She graduated
from Campbell University School of Law in 1981 and practiced law until
1996, when she was elected secretary of state, the first woman elected
to a state cabinet post in a statewide election. Marshall has remained
personally involved with youth through 4-H by helping establish the
North Carolina Youth Issues Town Hall Meeting, which she moderates annually
as a part of State 4-H Congress.
As Belk received his Lifetime
Achievement Award, he was cited for his generosity. Cameron Harris,
event chairman and president of Cameron M. Harris and Co., described
how Belk helped former Halifax County 4-H member Caleb Whitaker, who
as a youth had earned an expense-paid trip to National 4-H finals.
“Caleb’s mother
was reluctant to let him go because she felt his clothes were not ‘good
enough,’ ” Harris said. Belk outfitted Whitaker, offered him
$250, helped him travel to Chicago and helped him obtain similar contributions
from two other prominent clothing retailers. Whitaker returned to Halifax
County and immediately decided to enroll in a community college, Harris
said. Whitaker is now serving in Germany with the U.S. Army.
McFadden was not present,
but Bill Coley, honorary event chair, noted his award-winning accomplishments.
McFadden, a North Carolina native, is a Nobel Laureate in Economics
and E. Morris Cox Professor of Economics and Econometrics Laboratory
director at the University of California, Berkeley. His father, a Rowan
County Soil Conservation Agent, inspired McFadden to develop one of
North Carolina’s first 4-H Soil Conservation Demonstrations.
Dr. James L. Oblinger, College
dean, presented the first College Legacy Award to the Benjamin P. Jenkins
II family, leaders in the Cooperative Extension Service and for 4-H
in Randolph, Cleveland and Alamance Counties. “This legacy has
continued in the next generation,” Oblinger said, inviting Benjamin
P. Jenkins III to accept the award on his family’s behalf.
The elder Jenkins was born
in 1916, attended Gardner-Webb Junior College and graduated from N.C.
State College with a B.S. in agronomy in 1938. He served as a Randolph
County Cooperative Extension agent for many years and as county chairman
for 16 years. He was a master at sharing research from N.C. State University
with the farmers with whom he worked, said Oblinger
Jenkins III heads the Wachovia
Corporation’s General Bank. He earned his bachelor’s degree
in textile chemistry at N.C. State and his MBA degree at the University
of Alabama. He served as First Union Bank’s city executive in High
Point and Raleigh and led First Union divisions in South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida and the Mid-Atlantic. He serves on the Queens University board
of trustees and has served on N.C. State’s board of advisers and
board of visitors.
—Art
Latham
