House nominates 15 for UNC Board of Governors

House nominees for the UNC Board of Governors include six current members and nine others.

Sixteen seats of the 32-member university system governing board are up for election this year. The House and Senate each elect half of the open seats.

Current members nominated for re-election are: James Holmes Jr., a Raleigh businessman; Dick Taylor, a Lumberton business owner; David Powers, a Winston-Salem businessman; Mary Ann Maxwell, a Goldsboro businesswoman; Raiford Trask III, a Wilmington real estate developer; and Hari Nath, a Cary businessman.

Others nominated are: Christopher Derrick, a Lake Junaluska attorney; Pearl Burris-Floyd of Dallas, NC, a vice president of the Greensboro Partnership; Matthew-Todd Johnson, a Monroe insurance agent; Walter Davenport, a Raleigh accountant and consultant who previously served on the Board of Governors; John Alex Mitchell, a Durham developer; C. Philip Byers of Forest City, president of Challenge Foundation Properties and trustee at Western Carolina University; Joe Thomas Knott III, a Raleigh lawyer; Ed Broyhill, Winston-Salem businessman who has served as a trustee at Winston-Salem State and Appalachian State universities; Dr. Dwight Perry, a Durham ophthalmologist and trustee at N.C. Central University.

The Senate’s nominees include four current members.

The UNC Board of Governors formed a nominating committee Wednesday to set up three committees that will participate in the search for a successor to UNC President Tom Ross. The Republican-dominated board acted in January to force the early retirement of Ross, who will leave the job next year.

This story was originally published March 12, 2015 at 1:26 PM.