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NEWS SERVICES |
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Nov. 20, 2003 -- No. 615 |
Photo note: To download photos of the Davie Award recipients, see the end of the release.
Trustees honor four with Davie Award in recognition of extraordinary service
CHAPEL HILL -- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees presented the prestigious William Richardson Davie Awards to four longtime friends of the university Nov. 19.
Chancellor James Moeser and the Board of Trustees honored the following Davie Award recipients at a Carolina Inn dinner: Mary Anne Johnson Dickson of Charlotte, Dr. William Rand Jordan of Fayetteville, Dean Edwards Smith of Chapel Hill and Van Louis Weatherspoon of Charlotte.
The Davie Award, the highest award given by UNC’s trustees, is named for the Revolutionary War hero considered to be the father of the university. Created in 1984, the annual award recognizes extraordinary service to the university or to society.
Dickson serves on the Carolina First fund-raising campaign’s steering committee, chairing the campaign’s Carolina Women’s Leadership Council, a 100-plus-member group. She chaired the Board of Visitors in 1998-99 as part of a four-year term of service.
A UNC graduate in political science, she also earned a degree in business
administration from N.C. Wesleyan College. Dickson was assistant to the chairman
and chief executive officer of Rocky Mount-based Hardee’s Food Systems and
worked within marketing and public relations.
With her sister, Neal Johnson, she created the C. Garland Johnson Sr. Scholars
Fund in International Studies in memory of their father. Initially, the
scholarship will provide funding for seven College of Arts and Sciences students
from Wilkes, Surry or Yadkin counties to study abroad.
Dickson also has supported UNC programs including women’s studies, the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. She also plans to establish a mentoring program for UNC seniors.
Her husband, Alan, serves as chairman of the Morehead Foundation, and the couple support the Morehead Scholars program.
Jordan, former vice chairman of UNC’s Board of Trustees, is chief executive officer of Global Lithotripsy, Ultra Imaging of North Carolina and Sonorex, a new venture that uses shock waves to treat pain.
He holds UNC degrees in English and medicine. After completing residencies at the University of Florida, Jordan returned to his hometown, Fayetteville, to open a practice in urology.
Convinced that lithotripsy would revolutionize the treatment of kidney stones, Jordan and his partners made that concept the foundation for Carolina Lithotripsy, which expanded beyond North Carolina to became Lithotripters. Jordan also is chief executive officer of Lithotripters, purchased by Prime Medical Services in 1996.
Jordan and his wife, Jeanne, have endowed UNC professorships in English, and in the School of Medicine to focus on eating disorders. They support eight Jordan Carolina Scholars, as well as the School of Public Health, Kenan-Flagler Business School, the Lineberger Center and other UNC programs.
He served on the chancellors’ search committees after the retirement of Paul Hardin and the death of Michael Hooker. Jordan also was chairman of the chancellor’s substance abuse task force. He is a member of Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Board of Visitors.
Smith, the UNC men’s basketball head coach for 36 years before stepping down in 1997, coached UNC to 11 Final Fours, two national titles and 13 Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament championships. He retired as the all-time winningest coach in basketball history, with 879 wins.
While at the University of Kansas on academic scholarship, Smith played basketball for legendary Jayhawks coach Phog Allen. After assistant coaching stints at Kansas and the U.S. Air Force Academy, he joined UNC basketball coach Frank McGuire’s coaching staff, and he became head coach three years later, in 1961. More than 96 percent of Smith’s lettermen graduated since his first year as head coach.
He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983 and the N.C. Hall of Fame in 1981. Smith is the author of "Basketball: Multiple Offenses and Defense," the best-selling technical basketball book in history.
At UNC, Smith and his wife, Dr. Linnea Smith, have supported the schools of education, social work, journalism and mass communication, and medicine; the University Library; the Stone Center; and the Medical Foundation, with special emphasis on the Childhood Trust supporting UNC Hospitals’ program on childhood trauma and maltreatment.
Weatherspoon, who has served on UNC’s Board of Visitors and as a key volunteer leader for the Bicentennial Campaign for Carolina, is owner and president of the Weatherspoon Group Inc., a real estate development firm.
He played football for UNC on scholarship, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. In 1966, he became a partner in the real estate development firm of Masten, Faison & Weatherspoon, now the Weatherspoon Group.
His father-in-law, C. Knox Massey Sr., served two decades as a UNC trustee, later working as a "dollar-a-year" special assistant to the chancellor and endowing the Massey Awards to recognize outstanding UNC employees.
With other family members, Van and Kay Massey Weatherspoon have endowed the Massey-Weatherspoon fund to enhance excellence in teaching, research and public service and the C. Knox Massey Sr. professorship in business administration.
In Kenan-Flagler, they sponsor the Van Weatherspoon Faculty Lectureships and created the Van and Kay Weatherspoon Business Administration Endowment Fund. In the School of Medicine, they created the Van L. Weatherspoon Jr. professorship in neurosurgery to honor the memory of their son.
The Weatherspoons’ recent gift enabled the University Library to purchase the Andre Savine Collection, one of the world’s largest collections of Russian archival materials.
Van Weatherspoon received the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Alumni Merit Award from Kenan-Flagler in 2001.
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News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415 or deborah_saine@unc.edu
