THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 30, 1996 TAG: 9601300292
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
A $500,000 endowment to honor former Mayor E.V. Wilkins of Roper with a distinguished professor's chair at Elizabeth City State University was announced Monday by interim Chancellor Mickey L. Burnim.
For 30 years, Wilkins was a teacher and principal in Washington County schools. He served as mayor of Roper for 22 years, and most recently was chairman of the trustee's board of ECSU.
``It's nice to have something like this happen when you're still alive,'' Wilkins said Monday.
Wilkins will be 85 in July.
Burnim said than a $114,000 donation from the C.D. Spangler Foundation recently brought to $334,000 the amount of private funds on hand to partially underwrite the Wilkins professorship.
The $334,000 is enough, Burnim said, to request state matching funds to bring the endowment to $500,000.
C.D. Spangler Jr., president of the University of North Carolina system, contributed the Spangler Foundation funds to match those already collected for the professorship. ECSU is one of the 16 campuses in the UNC system.
``The university is extremely pleased to have accomplished this major goal and particularly proud to be honoring Mr. Wilkins, an outstanding educator, administrator and community servant who has been a tremendous asset to ECSU,'' Burnim said.
Wilkins is a soft-spoken Democratic Party leader who has for decades been one of the acknowledged political powers in North Carolina.
Although he is a carved-in-granite Democrat, Wilkins' views and influence have many times crossed party lines to affect the ambitions of candidates far removed from the little town of Roper in Washington County.
Spangler will be among those who plan to come to ECSU in spring to honor Wilkins on the occasion of the endowment of the professor's chair in his name.
Burnim said that a program is being developed that will determine the academic department in which the Wilkins chair will be installed. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
E.V. Wilkins
by CNB