Sanford School of Public Policy
Duke University

News & Observer - Prominent citizen helped shape city, April 22, 1998

By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER, Staff Writer

DURHAM -- Terry Sanford called a lot of places home during his career, from the governor's mansion in Raleigh to the president's house at Duke University. He even aspired to occupy the most well-known domicile of all, the White House.

But while Sanford, who died Saturday at age 80, never strayed far from the national stage, he left perhaps his greatest imprint on Durham, the city he called home for the last 28 years of his life.

From Research Triangle Park to Treyburn, Brightleaf Square to the American Dance Festival, Durham traces many of its modern-day successes to Sanford, friends and associates said Tuesday.

"He was very interested in Durham's growth and development ... that would provide jobs and improve quality of living," said Clay Hamner, a developer who along with Sanford and his son, Terry Sanford Jr., built Treyburn, a 5,300-acre residential community and industrial park in northern Durham County. "He promoted Durham as a place to live as well as a place to work."

Under his watch, Sanford's adopted hometown grew from a tobacco- and textile-dependent town into the City of Medicine, an internationally known research and medical hub anchored by RTP to the south and Duke's medical center to the north.

Sanford moved to Durham in 1970, when he became Duke's president. His influence, though, was felt a decade earlier.

As North Carolina's governor from 1961 to 1965, Sanford became the top business recruiter and head cheerleader for the nascent research park in southern Durham County. His political friendship with President Kennedy paid early dividends, landing a new Environmental Protection Agency research center for RTP.

"He played an integral part in bringing facilities to the park," said Elizabeth Aycock, a longtime employee of the Research Triangle Foundation, the nonprofit organization that manages the park.

Sanford, while governor, also championed public education in the arts, helping start the N.C. School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and the Governor's School, a summer academy for gifted high school students.

At the time, Sanford hoped to build a residential high school for math and science scholars. The project -- the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics in Durham -- became a reality in 1980 under Gov. Jim Hunt.

"He felt there was not enough political capital for a third school and [advised school supporters] to ask the next governor," said John Friedrick, the school's current director.

Once his term as governor ended, Sanford worked for a Raleigh law firm and was chairman of Hubert Humphrey's 1968 presidential campaign. Two years later, Sanford -- who received undergraduate and law degrees from the University of North Carolina -- took the helm at Duke.

Student unrest and Vietnam War protests occupied much of Sanford's time in his first years as a university president. But once the war ended, Sanford took great strides toward shattering the university's derisive reputation outside its Gothic walls as "The Plantation" -- an uncaring employer that turned a blind eye to Durham's problems and cared little for its low-paid service employees, most of them black.

"He was instrumental in pushing for low-income housing," said Jack Preiss, a former City Council member and retired Duke sociology professor. That support continued when Sanford was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, Preiss said.

In 1980, Sanford inaugurated Sunday breakfasts on East Campus among Duke administrators, local politicians and business and civic leaders.

"It did much to bridge the gap between Duke and Durham," said Howard Clement, a City Council member.

Sanford described that commitment in a 1978 speech to the Durham Civitan Club.

"It is a constant purpose of Duke University to be a good Durham citizen concerned with all of its problems and hopes," he said. "We at Duke are not an island unto ourselves. We care about our community."

Despite spending 15 years in academia, Sanford retained a sharp touch as a business recruiter.

"Without him, we would not be in Durham," said Charles Reinhart, co-director of the ADF, the summer festival of modern dance that moved to North Carolina from Connecticut two decades ago.

Reinhart recalled how Sanford marshaled a 400-person lobbying committee to persuade the dance festival to head south. The widespread community support won Durham the nod over Milwaukee and Worcester, Mass.

"I looked at those 400 people and thought, 'If they each buy two subscriptions, wouldn't that be wonderful,' " Reinhart joked.

Each summer now, thousands of dance students and performers descend upon Durham from around the world. Locally, the festival draws spectators from Raleigh, Chapel Hill and the rest of the Triangle, Reinhart noted.

"Back then, Durham wasn't so used to winning," he said, mentioning the state symphony's move from Durham to Raleigh. "Durham was not viewed as the garden spot of the Triangle."

In addition to his stewardship at Duke, Sanford joined his son as one of Durham's foremost landowners and developers. With Hamner, they converted a stable of old tobacco warehouses into Brightleaf Square, a popular collection of restaurants, bars and specialty shops.

In 1982, they bought a vast hunting preserve owned by Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co. and built Treyburn, a project envisioned as a northern counterpart to RTP.

One of Sanford's colleagues on Treyburn was Ken Spaulding, who -- in part thanks to Sanford -- would become one of the city's top lawyers and political powerbrokers.

"It provided an opportunity that black attorneys did not really have here in Durham," said Spaulding, describing Sanford's decision to hire him as Treyburn's lead counsel. "Each time a door of equal opportunity is opened, it provides a situation in which many other people can go through those doors."

The Sanford development team also bought and renovated several declining but historic downtown properties, Hamner said, including the NationsBank and Baldwin buildings.

"He was one of the first people to invest in downtown and push it as an economic center," Hamner said of Sanford.

Sanford left Duke in 1985 and moved to Washington one year later. But he planted roots in Durham, building a home on Auburn Street in the shadow of Duke Forest.

Even in his final months, as cancer left him increasingly weak and bedridden, Sanford persevered with efforts to build the proposed Performing Arts Institute of North Carolina, a $100 million regional showcase intended to unite the Triangle's rich arts communities.

And while though the project casts an especially strong regional flavor, Sanford continued to look out for Durham's interests. Among the institute's possible locations: RTP and downtown Durham.

Today, Sanford will be laid to rest, fittingly enough, in Duke Chapel.

© 1998 The News & Observer Publishing Co. / Raliegh, NC  Used by permission.

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