From Playground to Presidents

Dr. Hope Williams (and not UNC-G Chancellor Patricia Sullivan, as I mistakenly reported earlier, after simply getting them mixed up), president of the NC Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, poked a little fun at her outgoing association chair and new University of North Carolina system President Erskine Bowles when he was sworn in at a formal inaugural on April 12. Williams noted that the president of the N.C. Association of Independent Colleges and Universities – Warren Wilson College President Doug Orr – and Bowles were both Greensboro boys who attended the same elementary school in the 1950s.

She wondered aloud whether Orr and Bowles had gotten together on the playground at Irving Park Elementary School all those years ago to discuss their plan to take over the public and private colleges of North Carolina. It may have been my imagination, but I think I saw both Bowles and Orr, seated in the row behind Bowles, grin but shake their heads briefly.

I think Doug Orr, now retiring from Warren Wilson in Black Mountain, was a few years ahead of Bowles, though they grew up just a couple of blocks apart. As Bowles faces his first legislative session since assuming the UNC presidency, Orr faces accolades from many admirers for his leadership at Warren-Wilson and his campaign to make that little college shine even brighter. It’s one of a handful of work-study colleges in America; students must work at a campus job and they most perform outside community service before they graduate. I’m biased about this, I’ll admit. My daughter went to school there, and my wife and I’ve been on the Board of Visitors there for years.

Orr, by the way, was a vice president of UNC Charlotte prior to becoming president at Warren Wilson. His contributions to North Carolina are notable, particularly his coauthorship, with the late James Clay and with UNCC geology professor Al Stuart, of the landmark 1975 “North Carolina Atlas.”

In 2000, Orr and Stuart produced a new volume of “The North Carolina Atlas: Portrait For a New Century.” There’s an online North Carolina Atlas, too.

Orr’s a delightful guy. He plays with famous songwriter Billy Edd Wheeler and another musician in The Three Elvi – doing a sendup impression of Elvis Presley that is not to be missed. A few years ago, Orr observed that at the time of Elvis Presley’s death 25 years ago, there were a few dozen Elvis impersonators. Today there are an estimated 35,000. "It has been speculated that if that rate of growth sustains itself, one of every four human beings on the planet would be an Elvis impersonator by 2030," Orr laughed.

His writings on growing up in Greensboro – and witnessing Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson’s visit to Memorial Stadium there in 1950 and Elvis Presley’s performance at the old National Theater on Elm Street – are fascinating.

If I were Orr, I’d watch out. Now that he’s about to step down, Bowles may pick up the phone and have that conversation about running colleges and universities. Shoot, he may even put Orr back to work.