Printer Friendly
Email to a Friend
Enlarge Font
Decrease Font
bruce.siceloff@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4527
Story Tools
SUPPORT FOR A STUDENT AND A PRESIDENT
A GRADUATION GIFT
In the spring of 1999, Reyna Walters, student body president at UNC-Chapel Hill, chatted with Walter Davis about her plan to earn money over the summer for a trip to Europe.
"He said he was going to make that happen for me," recalled Walters, now a lawyer in Washington. Later, a $10,000 check from Davis arrived.
Walters spent two months touring Europe on his graduation gift.
"I know it sounds sort of cliche," she said, "but it really did change my life."
DAVIS AND THE FIRST IRAQ WAR
In 1991, Walter Davis bought a full-page ad in The Washington Post to support the decision by the first President Bush to go to war with Iraq and protect the gulf region's oil reserves.
Terry Sanford, then a Democratic U.S. senator from North Carolina whom Davis backed, worried that the nation was starting another Vietnam War.
"Terry said, 'We'll lose 70,000 people,' and I said, 'I'll bet you a steak dinner we don't lose 100,' " Davis said in 2001. "And we only lost five."
ARRANGEMENTS
Walter Davis is survived by his wife, JoAnn. A funeral is planned for 2 p.m. Friday at Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, with a reception to follow in the church.
More Local & State
Most Popular
Last 24 Hours
Last 7 Days
Last 24 Hours
Last 7 Days
Advertisements
"It made me understand there was a wider world than the Outer Banks and even North Carolina," Basnight said.Davis enjoyed the good life and big gestures. He took UNC board members to parties at his beach house. He rented trains in Europe to take friends on vacation. His attorney, Cecil Munn of Fort Worth, Texas, recalled an outing with Davis that began as a fishing trip for five couples -- to New Zealand, Tahiti and Hong Kong."On the plane to Tokyo he said, 'Let's take another month and go around the world,' " Munn said. The trip ended with a flight home from London on the Concorde.Davis went to Las Vegas to gamble and to Hong Kong to buy clothes for his huge frame."I just cannot find tailors here who can fit this body," he said in 2001.Outspoken at UNCHis gifts to UNC-CH included $1 million to help build the sports arena named for basketball coach Dean Smith. He gave $1.4 million for students who would teach in poor areas of northeastern North Carolina.Davis held courtside tickets to all UNC home basketball games, and he frequently distributed them to medical students and friends.Every spring for more than 20 years, he distributed ACC and NCAA basketball tournament tickets and political advice from his office suite in the Governors Inn at Research Triangle Park.Davis served as a Duke University trustee and a member of the statewide UNC Board of Governors, and he endowed buildings and programs at N.C. State and Elizabeth City State universities.Davis quit the UNC board in 1991 after charging that C.D. Spangler Jr., then the UNC president, was advancing his family fortune while neglecting the university's problems. Later, Davis was a critic of Spangler's successor, Molly Broad, and a key figure in contentious efforts to win greater autonomy for UNC-Chapel Hill."He was not bashful about letting his feelings be known," former UNC-CH chancellor Paul Hardin said.'A tough guy'In recent years Davis was weakened after a series of strokes, but he continued to receive visitors at his Chapel Hill home. A few hundred friends came from a half-dozen states for his 88th birthday party in January."He was a tough guy, by God, and he fought to his last breath," said Bob Eubanks of Chapel Hill, his son-in-law and former business partner. "He was always looking for ways to help people. He used to tell me he wanted to give away the last dollar he had on the day he died."
No comments have been posted for this story. Log in to be the first to comment.
The News & Observer is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since The News & Observer does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not The News and Observer.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking on the exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators, we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.
