1980-2004
Mildred D. Evans (b. 1917)
She and her husband, former Fayetteville Mayor Monroe Evans, helped lead the drive to establish the Fayetteville Museum of Art, which opened on Stamper Road in 1978.
She and her friend Martha Duell organized the International Folk Festival, which began in 1979 and each year draws tens of thousands of people downtown.
Mildred Evans also played a big role in local government. In 1977, she was elected to the City Council and went on to serve for nearly 15 years, including time as the mayor pro tem.
Her work in cultural activities included serving as the first chairman of the city's Sunday on the Square celebration. She also has had leadership roles with the Cumberland Community Action Program, the Cumberland County Coordinating Council on Older Adults, the Fayetteville Woman's Club and the N.C. Association of Jewish Women.
M. Elton Hendricks (b. 1935)
Methodist College was facing some tough times with declining enrollment when Dr. Elton Hendricks was chosen as the college's third president in 1983.
Under his leadership during the past 20 years, the college has grown in size and stature, adding a number of new programs and buildings to its 600-acre campus off Ramsey Street.
Within a year of his arrival, enrollment in the college's day program had increased 15 percent, to 760. But that was just the beginning. By 2000, as the college marked its 40th anniversary, enrollment was at 2,200 students and continuing to grow.
During Hendricks' tenure, Methodist College has nurtured strong ties with the local business community and has had a number of successful capital building campaigns. Among other programs, the college has established a business school (with concentrations in golf management and tennis management) and a post-graduate program in physician assistant studies. In sports, the college has established a football team, built a golf course on campus and fielded championship teams in golf and baseball.
Jeannette M. Council (b. 1943)
Cumberland County celebrates its 250th anniversary with Jeannette Council as the chairwoman of its Board of Commissioners.
It is not the first big position she has held.
She has been an educator since 1965, first as a teacher and for more than 20 years as an administrator in the public schools. She served as president of the Fayetteville State University National Alumni Association (she enrolled at FSU after graduating from E.E. Smith High School at age 15). She has been a member of the Democratic National Committee and has been a voting delegate at the party's national conventions since 1972. She has been a leader in state education groups, women's groups and Democratic groups, among others.
Dr. Jeannette Melvin Council is a Sampson County native. She is married to Thomas Council, a former school board member and longtime real-estate business owner in Fayetteville.
Bo Thorp (b. 1933)
Other stars have come and gone, but this "first lady of local theater" has continued to sparkle in productions that have entertained theatergoers in southeastern North Carolina for decades.
Olga Bernardin "Bo'' Thorp - accomplished actress, director and longtime artistic director of the Cape Fear Regional Theatre - received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the state's highest civilian honor, in 2003. The award cited her more than 40 years of contributions to the theater.
She and her husband, Fayetteville lawyer Herb Thorp, and actors Leonard McLeod, Pat Reese and others formed the Fayetteville Little Theater in 1962. The theater began operating out of an old Haymount movie house in 1963, and it has remained there as a creative force in the community. The theater enjoyed a partnership with the old Fort Bragg Playhouse beginning in the 1970s.
Under Bo Thorp's direction, the theater - renamed the Cape Fear Regional Theatre in 1986 - has gained a wide reputation, presenting original productions in tours across the state and even traveling to England to perform in 1982, developing a "River Renaissance" series on the banks of the Cape Fear River, and nurturing generations of young talent and creative energy throughout the community.
Marvin W. Lucas (b. 1941)
One of the consistent leading voices for the Spring Lake area for the past quarter century has been Marvin Lucas, a third-generation Spring Lake native in a community that has a large percentage of transient, military-affiliated residents.
Lucas participated in civil rights demonstrations while he was a college student at Fayetteville State in the early 1960s. In 1977, he became the first black member to be elected to the Spring Lake Board of Aldermen. He continued to serve on the board until 2001, when he stepped down as the mayor after being elected to the state House of Representatives. He was re-elected in 2003.
Lucas spent more than three decades working in the public schools and for a time was one of a few black administrators in previously all-white schools. He retired in 1998 as the principal at Pine Forest Middle School. Before that, he was the principal at Hope Mills Junior High School.
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