In memoriam: a tribute to Dave Gillespie.Our colleague David Gillespie, who died in Raleigh Sunday, March 26, at 84, was of a remarkable generation of Americans who went off to fight a war and defeated a monstrous set of enemies. He came home to spend the rest of his life upholding the freedoms he and his comrades won at a terrible cost. Nowhere is his presence felt more than in Charlotte, the city he adopted in 1961 and served so well as editor of these opinion pages. Former Observer associate editor Jack Claiborne recognized Mr. Gillespie's contributions in his 1986 history of the newspaper. Though Mr. Gillespie's name never appeared on the Observer's masthead mast·head n. 1. Nautical The top of a mast. 2. The listing in a newspaper or periodical of information about its staff, operation, and circulation. 3. , Mr. Claiborne wrote that he contributed greatly to its "character and moral force ... "If there was an unsung hero in the Observer's struggle to define the searing sear 1 v. seared, sear·ing, sears v.tr. 1. To char, scorch, or burn the surface of with or as if with a hot instrument. See Synonyms at burn1. 2. social and political issues of the 1960s, it was Gillespie." During a tumultuous decade, Dave Gillespie wrote powerful editorials about desegregating Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools, businesses, and public accommodations. His work helped persuade the state to elevate Charlotte College into a campus of the University of North Carolina North Carolina, state in the SE United States. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean (E), South Carolina and Georgia (S), Tennessee (W), and Virginia (N). Facts and Figures Area, 52,586 sq mi (136,198 sq km). Pop. system, convince the General Assembly to give Mecklenburg County a local sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. to support services support services Psychology Non-health care-related ancillary services–eg, transportation, financial aid, support groups, homemaker services, respite services, and other services and boost downtown redevelopment. Mr. Gillespie was a Gaston County native. By age 18 he was sports editor of the Gastonia Gazette. He became an infantry officer in World War II, earning a Silver Star for valor valor a rodenticide no longer marketed because of toxicity in horses causing dehydration, abdominal pain, hindlimb weakness, inappetence, fishy smell in urine. Called also N-3-pyridyl methyl N1-p-nitrophenyl urea. at Remagen Bridge as well as the Purple Heart. Ferrel Guillory, a co-worker and now a journalism professor at UNC (Universal Naming Convention) A standard for identifying servers, printers and other resources in a network, which originated in the Unix community. A UNC path uses double slashes or backslashes to precede the name of the computer. Chapel Hill, recalls Mr. Gillespie's wry humor and graceful writing. "He really loved North Carolina and really believed an editorial page ought to be a force for progress and illuminating issues," Prof. Guillory notes. Though Mr. Gillespie retired in 1986, he continued to write editorials regularly for the N&O. He won numerous prizes for excellence in editorial writing from the N.C. Press Association, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and was inducted into the N.C. Journalism Hall of Fame in 1989. North Carolina is better off today for Dave Gillespie's passion for progress--and his determination to speak his mind. Excerpted from the Charlotte Observer, March 99, 2006 See more Member News on page 22. |
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