RALEIGH - Johnny Mac Alexander's face squeezes into a squinty grin when he's asked about the mischievous repainting of a YMCA bus a few years ago at his truck dealership's repair shop.

The bus came in with the official lettering, "Central Branch."

It went out as, "Central Branch -- the REAL Y."

"It is alleged that I had something do with that," Alexander says coyly. "I'm not sure I'm ready to admit to it."

Alexander's prank signified the good-natured rivalry among local branches of the YMCA, which the hyperactive businessman and his extended family have long supported with, as the Y says, their time, talents and treasure.

"I like to stay on the move and get things done," says Alexander, 57, president of the Cardinal International Trucks dealership, tucked off South Wilmington Street just south of Raleigh's downtown. "There's lots that needs doing. My big thing is the Y."

Alexander backs all branches of the YMCA of the Triangle, but his heart is closest to the Y on Hillsborough Street near downtown Raleigh, as his father's had been. The father led the fundraising to build it in the late 1950s. The son has raised money for the Y and its programs for decades. And his wife and daughters have volunteered there and at its camps.

The original Central Y -- where the fictional TV character Barney Fife stayed -- has been demolished. A bigger, better, $16 million facility is going up in its place. The first phase is open, and the second is to follow next year.

But "the real Y" is no longer called the Central Y. Now it's the John M. Alexander Sr. Family YMCA, in honor of all that Johnny Mac and his clan have done for it, including making the lead gift toward its construction.

"The Y has many strong families, but the Alexander family has gone above and beyond in many ways," says Bruce Ham, who runs the new Y and several others.

Johnny Mac, as friends call him, is the family's hard-driving force.

"He's a passionate man, and he has a strong presence," Ham says. "When he gets behind something, it will be successful -- because he won't rest until it is."

The new YMCA's ribbon was cut just a week ago, and the man who concedes that others perceive him as "a constantly churning bubble" is already busy raising money for its youth scholarships.

Alexander also raises money for his church, White Memorial Presbyterian. He's a board member at First Citizens Bank, is involved in charities besides the Y, and has season tickets for the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team and N.C. State University's Wolfpack football and basketball squads.

"If he believes in something, he will support it to the fullest," says his sister, Jeanie Alexander Wilkerson, a retired schoolteacher in Black Mountain who attended the Raleigh Y's summer camp growing up. "He tells it like it is. He got that from our dad."

Their father went by his first two names, John McKnitt.

The son, from an early age, was called Johnny Mac, his sister says.

"As he has grown up he has tried to take on ... " -- her voice drops into an affected baritone -- " ... 'This is John Alexander,' " she intones. "He can forget that. It hasn't worked. Once you get to know him, he's Johnny Mac."

Following his father

Alexander assumed much of his identity and many of his pursuits from his father, who in 2000 died of a fall from his tractor.

Besides taking over the truck dealership and following his father's lead at the Y, Alexander, like his father, bears a striking resemblance to the Santa Claus who reigns at Raleigh's annual Christmas Parade.

"I will neither confirm nor deny that," Alexander says with a grin. "I don't know about all those mall people, but the one at the Raleigh Christmas Parade is the real one from the North Pole. And he'll be here ... " -- Alexander pauses to search his desktop calendar -- "... on November 17th."

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