Walter Royal Davis, a multi-millionaire who worked his way up from a Pasquotank County farm to become an oil baron in Texas and later a implacable -- some say bull-headed -- force in North Carolina politics and higher education, died Monday in Chapel Hill. The News & Observer has a comprehensive story today about his figurative and literal contributions to the state. Click here:
The thing that knocked me out about Davis, a larger-than-life fellow (300 pounds in his prime) was his often-gruff style and his soft heart. He is said to have sent something like 1,300 students to college -- and once wrote a $100,000 check for East Carolina students after Hurricane Floyd disrupted life for just about everyone in Greenville.
But Davis didn't make life easy for everyone. He had a falling out with one of his partners, the legendary oilman Armand Hammer, and also differed publicly with UNC Presidents C.D. Spangler and Molly Broad. William A. Link, the scholarly author of biographies and former UNC President Bill Friday and lately former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, wrote about Davis' role in the 1984 upheaval when the UNC Board of Governors was choosing a new board chairman just before Friday retired. In his book "William Friday: Power, Purpose, & American Higher Education," Link wrote that some board dissidents had chafed at Friday's style in running the system; they wanted to be stronger players in the course of the university and not rubber stamps, and Davis broke his pledge of support for former Winston-Salem Mayor Wayne Corpening, the choice of the previously ruling coalition on the board, to support Phil Carson. Following that, Link reported, Davis was one of three board members who met secretly at the old Governor's Inn in the Research Triangle Park before Board of Governors meetings to decide what the board would do next. (Carson has denied this account, but Link stands by his reporting.)
And Davis's lasting contribution might be his mentoree, longtime state Senate president pro tem Marc Basnight, who Davis groomed for a role in statewide politics and who is often regarded as the strongest public official in the state.
