C.D. Spangler’s commitment to education was exemplary

Excerpts from a speech given Thursday by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr:

I rise today to honor and to celebrate the life of C.D. “Dick” Spangler, a great North Carolinian who passed away this week. The true mark of a great man, a great contributor to our society, is the fact that there’s several acts in that individual’s life. There’s no one single attribute to which to ascribe the contribution and Dick Spangler was such a man.

Although he was a brilliant businessman, in my mind Dick Spangler will best be remembered in our state for his commitment to education and what it means for lifting individuals out of poverty, giving them a path for learning, and expressing their individuality. He did this by advocating for a return to the emphasis on teaching the basics, higher salaries for teachers, programs for training high school principals for a very challenging job.

The second act in the energies and personal contributions he made to it are what made Dick the remarkable man he was. During his time as president of the University of North Carolina system, a position he held for over a decade, Dick was laser focused on keeping North Carolina’s public university system affordable and low cost for all seeking post-secondary education. It’s because of his dedication so many years ago to low-cost tuition in the UNC system, a mission he pursued without a paycheck during his time as president, that current North Carolinians today receive an affordable great university education.

For those who know the Spangler family and Dick’s commitment to the state, I’ll always remember Dick for his philanthropy and the commitment to bettering our state through his personal efforts and his personal giving. The C.D. Spangler foundation dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars over the past several decades to better public education in our state.

For those unfamiliar with the racial history of North Carolina schools, Dick Spangler was prompted by Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools, that seminal Supreme Court decision which said it wasn’t enough to simply say desegregation of public schools was the law of the land, towns needed to commit to it and follow through on educating minorities next to their white peers.

It’s no exaggeration to say without Dick’s leadership in Charlotte during the 1970s and 1980s, racial desegregation of Charlotte schools might not have happened the way that it did — serving as a national model for other communities grappling with racial tensions in their schools. Dick was so adamant about the fact that he decided not just to put his tremendous personal wealth to work but he put his time on earth to work as well. He ran to become vice chairman of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools in an effort to ease the racial tensions that existed at the time in Charlotte.

Although he could have afforded to send his children to private school, he chose to lead by example and sent them to Charlotte public schools to prove what is obvious to us now but was seemingly so controversial at the time.

Dick Spangler was committed. He was committed to this country, he was committed to the state. He loved his UNC Tar Heels. And, more importantly, he loved his family. His leading by example rather than simply words will remain in my mind as we mourn and celebrate the loss of a great man.