Chronology

Six writers read at the Hardback Cafe to raise money against the Shearon Harris nuclear plant

Joe Ashby Porter, Jill McCorkle, Clyde Edgerton, Lee Smith, Garrett Epps and Elizabeth Spencer read from their work at a $50-a-plate benefit dinner at the Hardback Cafe, raising over $2,000 for the Coalition for Alternatives to Shearon Harris. Organizers turned away 30 ticket requests because of the room's fire-code limit.

People: Lee Smith · Clyde Edgerton · Jill McCorkle

Jill McCorkle reads To Kill a Mockingbird at a Banned Books Week protest in the Pit

For National Banned Books Week, UNC students and faculty read from challenged books in the Pit, in a program sponsored by the Bull's Head Bookstore with national bookseller and library associations. Jill McCorkle, then a creative writing lecturer, read from To Kill a Mockingbird with a student, Greg Meyjes; Elizabeth Spencer and Thadious M. Davis also read.

People: Elizabeth Spencer

UNC gives Jeff MacNelly its Distinguished Alumnus Award

At the University Day convocation in Memorial Hall, UNC presented Distinguished Alumnus Awards to cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, Justice Henry E. Frye, Rolfe Neill, Banks C. Talley Jr. and John A. Montgomery.

Subject: Memorial Hall

Carmichael Residence Hall is dedicated

The university dedicated a new six-storey residence hall for 486 students, named for Katherine Kennedy Carmichael.

A master plan for the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery is completed

The master plan, finished in 1987 and revised by landscape architect David Swanson, set goals, service levels and management for the cemetery and first called for settling its ownership. A new gazebo and lawn followed.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

The Trimble house, one of the first in the Gimghoul subdivision, is torn down

The 1924 house built for Ralph and Hazel Trimble on Glandon Drive, one of the first in the Gimghoul subdivision, is demolished, leaving a vacant lot.

Subject: Gimghoul Castle and neighborhood

UNC men's soccer wins the ACC title and reaches the NCAA Final Four

Under Dorrance the Tar Heel men won the Atlantic Coast Conference title in 1987 and reached the NCAA Final Four.

Valerie Foushee works as an administrative officer for the Chapel Hill Police Department

Foushee spent 21 years as an administrative officer with the Chapel Hill Police Department, from 1987 to 2008.

R. B. House dies in Chapel Hill

House died at his home in Chapel Hill and was buried in the local cemetery. He had retired as chancellor in 1957 and taught in the university's English department until 1962.

Sitterson Hall, the new computer science building, is dedicated on University Day

The Department of Computer Science moved into its new building over the summer of 1987, and the formal dedication of Sitterson Hall, named for former chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson, was held on University Day with Sitterson present and former governor Hunt giving the main address.

The Siena Hotel prepares to open on East Franklin Street

The 80-room Siena Hotel, built by the Siena Partnership of Joe Hakan and Sam Longiotti as part of a nine-acre development with the Chapel Hill Center, was scheduled to open in late October 1987.

Jonathan Howes is elected mayor of Chapel Hill

Jonathan Howes, director of UNC's Center for Urban and Regional Studies, won the mayoral race with 53 percent of the vote over Julie Andresen and David Lineberger, carrying the student precincts at Greenwood and Country Club. Outgoing mayor James Wallace said the office would be in very good hands.

Hilliard Caldwell tells a Chapel Hill forum that local schools still fail Black students

Speaking as home school coordinator for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools at a Human Rights Week forum, Caldwell said the community spent millions on education without adequate results and that few Black students reached the honor rolls. His cousin Ed Caldwell, a school board member, spoke as well.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

Albert Coates publishes his last book, on Edward Kidder Graham, Harry Chase and Frank Porter Graham

Coates's final book, published in 1988, paid tribute to the three University presidents he credited with shaping his life.

John Shelton Reed becomes director of UNC's Institute for Research in Social Science

Sociologist John Shelton Reed directed the Institute for Research in Social Science, later the Odum Institute, from 1988 until he retired in 2000.

Oliver Smithies and Nobuyo Maeda join the UNC faculty

Smithies and Nobuyo Maeda came to UNC's School of Medicine in 1988; Smithies later described himself as the trailing spouse, UNC having recruited Maeda.

People: Aziz Sancar

Subject: UNC School of Medicine

UNC names its biotechnology building Fordham Hall

In 1988 the university named its biotechnology building Christopher C. Fordham Hall.

Joe and Odell Thompson give a free concert in Gerrard Hall

The Mebane fiddle and banjo duo played a free folk concert at 7:30 p.m. in Gerrard Hall during Graduate and Professional Student Federation Week. The federation and the UNC Curriculum in Folklore sponsored it.

Subject: Gerrard Hall

The state adds Rocky Ridge Farm and Chapel Hill Town Hall to the Study List

Acting on requests from owners and sponsors, the State Professional Review Committee on April 14, 1988 placed the Rocky Ridge Farm Development Historic District, the Laurel Hill neighborhood, and Chapel Hill Town Hall on the Study List. Robert Stipe abstained on the two Chapel Hill votes.

Subject: Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District (Laurel Hill) · Chapel Hill Town Hall (1938)

Paul Hardin serves as chancellor of UNC at Chapel Hill

Hardin, who had led Wofford College, Southern Methodist University and Drew University, was chancellor at Chapel Hill from July 1, 1988 to June 30, 1995. His administration covered the university's bicentennial and its fundraising campaign, the argument over a freestanding black cultural center and the housekeepers' class action suit.

Albert Coates, founder of the Institute of Government, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Albert Coates (1896-1989), who founded the Institute of Government at the university, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Fowler's Food Store closes and gives way to the 306 Shopping Center

The West Franklin grocery shut, and its site became a strip of shops set sideways to the street that opened with seven stores.

Huggins Hardware closes and Miami Subs takes its East Franklin store

The hardware store that had carried Vic Huggins's name since the 1940s was replaced by a Miami Subs sandwich shop.

Merge Records is founded in Chapel Hill

Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance started Merge in Chapel Hill in 1989, the year they formed Superchunk, to put out their own band's and friends' records on 7-inch singles and cassettes.

People: Mac McCaughan · Laura Ballance

Southern Oral History Program records histories of UNC people for the bicentennial

For UNC's bicentennial the Southern Oral History Program, then directed by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, added more than 300 interviews with the university's students, chancellors and service workers.

The Gap takes over the old Carolina Theatre on East Franklin Street

The Carolina Theatre gave way to a large Gap clothing store, one of several long-standing East Franklin businesses replaced in these years. A new Carolina Theatre opened in the corner building at Franklin and Columbia by 1994.

Subject: Carolina Theatre (1942)

The Interfaith Council begins turning the old town hall into a homeless shelter

In 1989 the building was leased to the Interfaith Council, which was rehabilitating it as a shelter for homeless people with donations and a town grant.

Subject: Inter-Faith Council for Social Service · Chapel Hill Town Hall (1938)

The North Carolina Collection Gallery opens in Wilson Library

A gallery conceived by North Carolina Collection curator H. G. Jones opened in the east wing of Wilson Library, with R. Neil Fulghum as its first keeper, to exhibit items the library had collected.

Subject: UNC Libraries

Downtown Commission asks for a special tax district for downtown Chapel Hill and Carrboro

Downtown Commission president Joe Hakan asked the Chapel Hill Town Council for a special service district taxing downtown property 7 cents per $100 to help fund the commission and a free downtown trolley. The council later voted the district down.

The university and the state quitclaim the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery to the town

A quitclaim deed dated February 22, 1989 released the university's and the state's rights in the cemetery to the Town of Chapel Hill, settling a question of ownership open since the 1920s.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Cat's Cradle opens at 206 West Franklin Street

After its lease ran out on September 1, 1988, at 320 West Franklin Street, the small room known as the shoebox, the club held its grand reopening in February 1989 at 206 West Franklin Street, its fourth location, where it stayed until 1993.

People: Frank Heath

Subject: Cat’s Cradle

Sounds of the South conference marks the opening of UNC's Southern Folklife Collection

More than 300 collectors, folklorists, musicians and archivists met at UNC-Chapel Hill for the official opening of the Southern Folklife Collection with the John Edwards Memorial Collection. Daniel W. Patterson, who helped build the collection, was among the presenters with Alan Lomax and Mike Seeger.

People: Mike Seeger

Subject: UNC Libraries

General Assembly renames North Carolina Memorial Hospital as UNC Hospitals at Chapel Hill

Session Law 1989-141, ratified May 25, 1989, replaced the name University of North Carolina Memorial Hospital with University of North Carolina Hospitals at Chapel Hill throughout the General Statutes and changed the terms of its board members.

Subject: UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital)

The Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District is listed in the National Register

On August 8, 1989 the National Park Service listed the Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District (Laurel Hill)

The Gimghoul neighborhood joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Gimghoul neighborhood in Chapel Hill as a historic district on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.

Subject: Gimghoul Castle and neighborhood

Jill McCorkle speaks in the Carolina Union's Southern Writers Series at Gerrard Hall

Jill McCorkle, author of The Cheerleader, July 7th and Tending to Virginia, gave the third talk in the Carolina Union Forum Committee's Southern Writers Series in Gerrard Hall, after Clyde Edgerton and John Ehle.

People: Clyde Edgerton · John Ehle

Subject: Gerrard Hall

1990 census counts the Hispanic-origin population of Orange County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill

The 1990 census counted 1,279 persons of Hispanic origin in Orange County (1.4% of 93,851), 199 in Carrboro (1.7% of 11,553) and 607 in Chapel Hill (1.6% of 38,719). Census Bureau report 1990 CP-1-35, Table 5 (counties) and Table 6 (places).

Cal Horton becomes Chapel Hill's town manager

Cal Horton, Chapel Hill's public safety director, took over as town manager in 1990 after Sonna Loewenthal's months as interim manager. He held the post until 2006.

Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Orange County begin a countywide search for a new landfill site

The three governing boards started a countywide search for the next sanitary landfill, carried out with a citizens' Landfill Search Committee and an engineering consultant. The Greene Tract, bought in 1984 for landfill use, was screened but not made a finalist.

Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in

The 1990 census counted 93,851 people in Orange County, 38,719 in Chapel Hill (37,604 in Orange County and 1,115 in Durham County) and 11,553 in Carrboro.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools form a Blue Ribbon Task Force after Black parents press on the achievement gap

Black parents demanded more resources for disadvantaged students, and the district responded with a Blue Ribbon Task Force. The article judges that it changed little: the gap between Black and White test scores, tracked since the 1980s, narrowed only slightly.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

Cornelia Spencer Love's Laurel Hill cottage is remodeled and enlarged with a modern two-story wing

The work replaced the shingles with wood siding and added a large glassy wing with a metal balcony. So little original fabric survives that the 2008 documentation reclassified the house as noncontributing.

Louis Rubin hands Algonquin Books to Shannon Ravenel and Robert Rubin

A year after Workman Publishing of New York bought Algonquin, Rubin turned control over to his son Robert and to Shannon Ravenel, who moved the St. Louis office to Chapel Hill.

People: Shannon Ravenel

The Lester Asheim Scholarship Fund is endowed at UNC's library school

The School of Information and Library Science endowed a scholarship fund in Asheim's name with $30,000; the school later listed it as a doctoral scholarship.

UNC dedicates the Herman G. Baity Environmental Laboratory

The School of Public Health dedicated McGavran-Greenberg Hall and the Herman G. Baity Environmental Laboratory, with Chancellor Paul Hardin giving the dedication.

People: Michel A. Ibrahim · Edward G. McGavran

Subject: UNC School of Public Health

Willie Scroggs leaves coaching for athletics administration at UNC

Scroggs retired from coaching at the end of the 1990 season to become associate athletic director for game operations and outdoor facilities, a job that grew into responsibility for athletics construction and operations on campus.

The state puts Merritt's Store, a 1920s Chapel Hill gas station, on the Study List

Members questioned whether a 1920s gas station belonged on the Study List until Robert Stipe and H. G. Jones spoke to the store's place in local social history. The committee then approved Merritt's Store with the day's other central and eastern requests on January 11, 1990.

Subject: Merritt's Store and Grill

Chapel Hill Town Hall is listed in the National Register

On March 20, 1990 the National Park Service listed Chapel Hill Town Hall in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Chapel Hill Town Hall (1938)

Superchunk releases its first album

The Chapel Hill band, whose early singles had launched Merge Records, issued its self-titled debut album on Matador; Merge put out the band's later albums from Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

People: Mac McCaughan · Laura Ballance

The McDade House on West Franklin Street joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Hudson-Merritt-McDade House at 113 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. It came to the committee as a public request.

James Brittian leads the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP

Brittian was president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP from December 1990 until his death at his Carrboro home in November 1993. Fred Battle served as interim president until Gene Hatley took over in February 1994.

People: Fred Battle

A downtown visitors center opens in the McDade House

A welcome center for downtown visitors, run with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Downtown Commission, opened in the McDade House on West Franklin Street in the spring of 1991. The commission also had its office in the house during the 1990s.

Chuck Stone joins the UNC journalism faculty

Stone came to UNC-Chapel Hill in 1991 and taught journalism there until he retired in 2005, holding the Walter Spearman professorship.

Mark Chilton is elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council at 21

Chilton, then a UNC undergraduate, won a seat on the Chapel Hill Town Council in 1991 at the age of 21 and served until 1997. He took a geography degree from UNC in 1993 and a law degree from North Carolina Central University in 1997.

Paul Green's writing cabin is moved to the North Carolina Botanical Garden

The 16-by-18-foot log cabin where the playwright wrote was moved to the Botanical Garden and restored when its old lot was to be sold. A Paul Green Cabin Task Force pressed for the move, citing Green's study of native plants.

Subject: North Carolina Botanical Garden

Robin and Bob Britt buy Merritt's store from the Merritt family

Robin and Bob Britt bought the South Columbia Street store from the Merritts in 1991. Robin Britt's BLT for her husband's lunch grew into the sandwich trade that made Merritt's Store and Grill a Chapel Hill landmark.

Subject: Merritt's Store and Grill

UNC's basketball team takes the court in Alexander Julian's argyle uniforms

At Dean Smith's request, the Chapel Hill native Alexander Julian redesigned the Tar Heel men's basketball uniforms, adding an argyle side panel that debuted in the 1991-92 season and became a symbol of the university.

People: Dean Smith

The William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education is dedicated

UNC dedicated its continuing education center, named for William and Ida Friday, on April 12, 1991. Friday described it as "the citizens' classroom."

Joe Hakan becomes chairman of the chamber of commerce

Joe Hakan became chairman of the chamber's board of directors and led it out of a budget deficit, cutting salaries and staff and hiring a lower-paid director.

William F. Little serves as acting provost

Little served as acting provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs between the departure of J. Dennis O'Connor and the arrival of a new provost.

Nirvana plays Cat's Cradle

Nirvana played the club's West Franklin Street room ten days after the release of Nevermind; Pearl Jam also played the Cradle in 1991, to about 100 people.

Subject: Cat’s Cradle

Kelly Lally and Ruth Little survey the historic buildings of Chapel Hill Township

From December 1991 to April 1992 architectural historians Kelly Lally and Ruth Little drove every road in Chapel Hill Township outside the Chapel Hill and Carrboro limits and recorded 160 historic properties in detail, the first phase of a county-wide survey of Orange County buildings.

Baptist conventions disassociate from Binkley

State and Southern conventions acted after the church licensed an openly gay ministerial candidate.

Daniel Pollitt retires from the UNC law faculty

Pollitt, by then a Kenan professor of law, retired from teaching in 1992 after more than 35 years at UNC. The Daily Tar Heel credited him with founding the North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, opposing the Speaker Ban and helping to integrate the university.

Subject: UNC School of Law

Local 506 opens on West Franklin Street

Glenn Boothe opened Local 506, an all-ages rock club for emerging and local bands, at 506 West Franklin Street and owned it for about a decade.

Merge releases its first full-length, Superchunk's Tossing Seeds

The Superchunk singles collection Tossing Seeds (Singles 89–91) was Merge's first full-length release and its first CD.

People: Mac McCaughan · Laura Ballance

Michael R. Smith becomes director of the Institute of Government

Smith, who had found the Institute by chance as a law student in 1978, was named director in 1992, the third after Coates to lead it, following John Sanders and Henry Lewis. He later headed it with the title of dean once it became the UNC School of Government.

People: John L. Sanders

Subject: Institute of Government

Paul Jones helps create SunSITE at UNC

Paul Jones of UNC's Office of Information Technology was instrumental in creating SunSITE, an Internet server and digital library at the university, in 1992.

Polvo releases its debut album Cor-Crane secret on Merge

The Chapel Hill quartet's first album came out on Merge in 1992, followed by Today's Active Lifestyles on Merge in 1993.

Smithies lab develops the first cystic fibrosis animal model

Smithies's laboratory at UNC used his gene-targeting method to produce the first animal model of cystic fibrosis.

UNC awards Shelby Foote an honorary Doctor of Letters

UNC-Chapel Hill conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters on Shelby Foote, a UNC student from 1935 to 1937, for his fiction and his three-volume narrative history of the Civil War.

UNC renames its admissions building Jackson Hall for Blyden and Roberta Jackson

The university renamed the former Navy Hall and Monogram Club building on Country Club Road, home of the admissions office since 1972, as Blyden and Roberta Jackson Hall. The Jacksons had retired from teaching in 1981.

People: Roberta Bowles Hodges Jackson

Jeff MacNelly pledges $25,000 toward a UNC journalism professorship honoring Jim Shumaker

Jeff MacNelly pledged $25,000 to the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication toward the James H. Shumaker Term Professorship. Shumaker had edited the Chapel Hill Weekly when MacNelly drew for it as a student.

Subject: The Chapel Hill Weekly

The Herndon House bungalow at Airport Road and Stephens Street is torn down

The story-and-a-half bungalow at 113 Stephens Street, sided in brown wood shingles with a porch on tapered columns over stone piers, stood until February 1992. A low stone wall and steps were left at the property line.

The Black Cultural Center holds a reception for alumnus Randall Kenan

UNC's Black Cultural Center held a reception for Kenan, a 1985 graduate, on the publication of his story collection Let the Dead Bury Their Dead; the Bull's Head Bookshop held an autograph party for the book the same day.

Subject: Sonja Haynes Stone Center (Black Cultural Center)

Jill McCorkle leaves her UNC creative writing lecturership to teach at Harvard

The Daily Tar Heel reported that Jill McCorkle, a lecturer in the English department's creative writing program who taught honors writing courses for first-year students and seniors, would leave the university that fall to teach at Harvard.

The state adds ten Chapel Hill Township farms and buildings to the Study List

Ruth Little, co-principal investigator for the first phase of the Orange County survey, presented ten properties from Chapel Hill Township on July 8, 1992, and the National Register Advisory Committee approved all of them. They ran from the Smith-Cole House and the two Couch farms to Bethel Baptist Church and Murphy School.

Subject: Murphey School · Bethel Baptist Church

Lizzie Mae Collins opens Lizzie Mae's Southern Kitchen

Lizzie Mae Collins opened a restaurant serving Southern cooking and gave jobs to people she knew who were trying to leave crime and drug use behind. By late 1993 she told the Daily Tar Heel the business was struggling and she was running the kitchen alone.

The Colonial Revival gas station at 100 East Franklin Street is torn down

The one-story, gabled brick filling station, built between 1949 and 1960 at the west end of the 100 block of East Franklin Street, was demolished in August 1992.

Fire damages the store building at 119 East Franklin Street

A two-story brick commercial building of 1915-25, with crenellated brickwork and grouped upper windows, was damaged by fire in September 1992, the month the survey was finished.

Jody Carter and Todd Peck survey rural Orange County buildings

From October 1992 to July 1993 Jody Carter and Todd Peck drove every passable road in Orange County outside Chapel Hill Township and the Hillsborough town limits, recording 507 buildings and complexes at least fifty years old and taking down oral history where they could.

Ben Folds Five forms in Chapel Hill

Ben Folds and bassist Robert Sledge, who had met at UNC Greensboro, moved to Chapel Hill and formed the piano trio Ben Folds Five with drummer Darren Jessee.

Chinese School at Chapel Hill is founded

The Chinese School at Chapel Hill, which teaches Chinese language and culture, was founded in 1993 in a community that had grown around UNC since graduate students from mainland China began arriving in the early 1980s. The IRS recognized it as a tax-exempt organization in December 1999.

Entertainment Weekly asks whether Chapel Hill is the next Seattle

A 1993 Entertainment Weekly article proposed Chapel Hill as Seattle's successor and questioned whether Superchunk wanted the role; Rolling Stone the same year floated Superchunk as the next Nirvana.

People: Mac McCaughan

Shelby Foote becomes UNC's first Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence

Shelby Foote spent the fall 1993 semester at UNC as the university's first Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence.

Southern Cultures publishes its first issue from UNC's new Center for the Study of the American South

John Shelton Reed and Harry L. Watson opened the first issue of the quarterly Southern Cultures, which they called the front porch of UNC's new Center for the Study of the American South.

Squirrel Nut Zippers form near Chapel Hill

Jim Mathus and Katharine Whalen, who had moved from Chapel Hill to a farmhouse in Efland, started the band in summer 1993, played their first show that November and signed with Mammoth Records in 1994.

The George Watts Hill Alumni Center opens on Stadium Drive

The General Alumni Association dedicated its new Alumni Center on Stadium Drive in 1993, and the university named it for George Watts Hill, who had pledged a $3.5 million challenge grant when the building campaign began.

NAACP task force begins a study of UNC's employee grievance procedure

A task force chaired by Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP president James Brittian held its first meeting to evaluate UNC's grievance and appeals procedure and employee relations counseling, aiming to change state law for workers across the UNC system. Former UNC personnel director Jack Gunnells was its operations director.

Chapel Hill Town Council funds the Midway Development Commission

The council unanimously approved a $6,000 grant to promote Black-owned businesses and housing in the Midway district between Chapel Hill and Carrboro. James Brittian, NAACP president and the commission's project development coordinator, said the money would bring in millions.

People: Cal Horton

The state puts the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery on the Study List

A committee member asked how the cemetery differed from other town burial grounds that held a community's leading people. Staff answered that cemeteries had to be judged one at a time and that the cemetery's clearly bounded older sections and the importance of those buried there met the test for cemeteries. The committee approved it on January 14, 1993.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Community Church joins the Unitarian Universalist Association

Members approved affiliation after years of discussion.

Subject: Community Church of Chapel Hill

Details magazine profiles the scene as "Chapel Hill-billies"

Details followed Spin with a February 1993 piece on the town's bands, and Time the same year named Chapel Hill as a possible alternative-rock boomtown.

Jesse Jackson comes to Chapel Hill during the Black Cultural Center sit-in

Jesse Jackson came to Chapel Hill while students occupied South Building for a free-standing Black Cultural Center, met first with Chancellor Hardin and urged him to call a special trustees' meeting, which Hardin refused. Sixteen students and a Chapel Hill resident were arrested that day.

Subject: Sonja Haynes Stone Center (Black Cultural Center) · South Building

Cat's Cradle closes its last Franklin Street location

The owners of the building at 206 West Franklin Street sold to a developer, and the club scheduled its last show there for May 19; Frank Heath then spent about six months looking for a new site.

People: Frank Heath

Subject: Cat’s Cradle

The Gimghoul Neighborhood Historic District is listed in the National Register

On August 5, 1993 the National Park Service listed the Gimghoul Neighborhood Historic District in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Gimghoul Castle and neighborhood

Archers of Loaf release their debut album Icky Mettle

The Chapel Hill band's first album came out on Alias Records; Merge later reissued it with bonus material.

Chancellor Paul Hardin confers an honorary doctor of laws on President Bill Clinton

After his speech at UNC's Bicentennial Convocation in Kenan Stadium, President Clinton received an honorary doctorate of law from Chancellor Paul Hardin.

Subject: Kenan Stadium

UNC and Chapel Hill celebrate their bicentennial

UNC marked 200 years since the laying of Old East's cornerstone with a Bicentennial Convocation in Kenan Stadium, where President Bill Clinton spoke to about 45,000 people. The town dedicated Michael Brown's mural of the October 12, 1793, lot auction at the Franklin Street post office.

Part of The founding of the University and Chapel Hill, 1789–1795 · 37 events

People: Bill Clinton

Subject: Old East · Kenan Stadium

Joe and Lucy Straley receive the first Charles M. Jones award of the local ACLU

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union gave Joe and Lucy Straley, both 79, its Charles M. Jones award for their work for peace, social justice and racial integration. The award, begun that year, recognizes contributions to civil liberties and civil rights in Orange and Chatham counties.

People: Joe Straley · Charles M. Jones

A new building fills the long-vacant corner of East Franklin and Columbia streets

The southeast corner, empty since its Texaco station was razed, gained a large building with Top of the Hill restaurant and a new Carolina Theatre among its tenants. Bryant says soil contamination had apparently kept the lot vacant.

C. D. Spangler Jr. buys the old Green-Phillips house at 513 East Franklin

After stepping down as president of the University, Spangler bought the house Walter and Anne Dellinger had owned since before 1973 and began restoring it. The house, built for William Mercer Green in the 1840s, later belonged to Charles Phillips and then served the Presbyterians as their manse.

Douglass Hunt receives a C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award

The university gave Hunt its Massey Award for service, citing him as a lawyer, historian and civil servant. He had worked with C. Knox Massey for several years to set up the Massey Awards and the Carolina Seminars program.

UNC renovates the Naval Armory to house all three ROTC branches

After a 1993 push from the Army and Air Force units, the university chose to keep the aging armory and spent more than $400,000 refitting it for Navy, Army and Air Force ROTC, closing the rifle range, cleaning up lead found there, and enclosing much of the drill deck for offices.

UNC wins the Sears Directors' Cup

Carolina won the Sears Directors' Cup for its all-sports record under athletics director John Swofford, the only ACC program to win the award.

Perry Deane Young speaks at Chapel Hill High School after gay-authored books are pulled from a reading list

After four gay- and lesbian-authored books were pulled from an English teacher’s multicultural reading list at Chapel Hill High School, Young and author Susan Johnson spoke at an evening program there and joined a panel. The Orange Lesbian and Gay Association and Many Voices, One Community sponsored it.

People: Mike Nelson

Subject: Chapel Hill High School

John Dee Holeman and Joe and Odell Thompson open UNC's bicentennial folk heritage series

Bluesman and buckdancer John Dee Holeman and the Mebane string band duo Joe and Odell Thompson opened From the Outer Banks to the Blue Ridge: A Celebration of North Carolina's Folk Heritage at 2 p.m. on March 23, 1994, in Person Hall. The free series was part of UNC's Bicentennial Observance.

People: Joe Thompson

Subject: Person Hall

The Old Chapel Hill Cemetery is listed in the National Register

On June 3, 1994 the National Park Service listed the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Owens 501 Diner is honored for turning a former gas station into a diner

The Chapel Hill Appearance Commission recognized Owens 501 Diner at a Town Council meeting for the creative reuse of a commercial building, a rehabilitated gas station made into a diner. The diner was advertising for staff in all positions in November 1992.

UNC hires Jenny Levy to start its women's lacrosse program

Carolina added women's lacrosse as a varsity sport and in October 1994 named Levy, then an assistant coach at Georgetown, its first head coach. She is still the only head coach the program has had.

People: John Swofford

Ben Folds Five release their debut album

The piano trio, formed in Chapel Hill around 1993, issued its self-titled first album on the independent Caroline label, then signed with Sony's 550 Music, which released Whatever and Ever Amen in 1997.

People: Ben Folds

Chapel Hill creates a domestic partner registry

The Town of Chapel Hill established a domestic partner registry in 1995, the year after Carrboro adopted its own. The Town added sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression to its employment protections in 2004.

Elson Floyd serves as UNC's first executive vice chancellor

Chancellor Michael Hooker hired Floyd in 1995 for the newly created post of executive vice chancellor, overseeing auxiliary services, facilities, business and finance, human resources, information technology, student affairs and university advancement. He left in 1998 to become president of Western Michigan University.

People: Michael Hooker

N.C. Neurosciences Hospital opens at UNC Hospitals

The N.C. Neurosciences Hospital opened in 1995 as a specialized hospital within the UNC Hospitals complex in Chapel Hill.

Subject: UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital)

Poet Alan Shapiro joins the UNC English faculty

Poet Alan Shapiro began teaching at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1995. He became Kenan Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing and later retired as professor emeritus.

Randall Kenan returns to UNC as a visiting professor

Kenan, who decided on a writing career in UNC English classes, came back to Chapel Hill in 1995 as a visiting professor, and read that February in the Second Sunday series at Wilson Library.

Subject: UNC Libraries

Yonni Chapman founds the Freedom Legacy Project at UNC

While a UNC history graduate student, Chapman founded and directed the Freedom Legacy Project, a student group that documented the history of racial justice struggles at the university and publicly questioned the Silent Sam statue and the naming of Saunders Hall.

Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

Annie Dillard is UNC's Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence

Dillard spent a week at UNC in the English department's Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence program, meeting creative writing students and giving a free public reading in Memorial Hall on February 1. The Daily Tar Heel reported a full house.

Subject: Memorial Hall

The Alexander Hogan Plantation site in Duke Forest joins the Study List

The state archaeology branch presented the plantation site in Duke Forest on April 13, 1995. Members observed that such sites were not unique but were becoming rare, and that Duke's long ownership had kept this one undisturbed; the committee approved it unanimously.

Subject: Duke land purchases in Orange County

A Lustron house on Stephens Street joins the Study List

On July 13, 1995 the committee placed the Lustron house at 109 Stephens Street in Chapel Hill on the Study List. Discussion turned to how many intact Lustron houses survived in North Carolina and whether a statewide count was needed; staff noted that intact examples in other states had been nominated under the exception for buildings less than fifty years old.

Subject: Williams Lustron House (109 Stephens Street)

Michael Hooker is inaugurated as chancellor at Chapel Hill

Hooker, who took office on July 1, 1995, was inaugurated on University Day. A Hugh Morton photograph records university president C. D. Spangler at the ceremony in Chapel Hill.

People: C. D. Spangler Jr.

The first Douglass Hunt Lecture is given at UNC

Carolina Seminars held its first Douglass Hunt Lecture on October 23, 1995, honoring Hunt's service to the university. Chancellor Paul Hardin spoke of him there.

UNC razes the Michie House, the last private home on campus, for parking

Demolition crews took down Sallie Markham Michie's house at South Columbia Street and Cameron Avenue three weeks after a judge ordered it sold to UNC by eminent domain. Michie had willed it to the DAR and the Magna Carta Dames on condition it never go to the University; the state paid the two groups $550,000.

A chancellor's task force recommends sprinklers and alarms in every fraternity and sorority house

After the Phi Gamma Delta fire, the Chancellor's Committee on Greek Affairs Fire Safety Task Force reported that all Greek houses should have sprinkler systems and alarms.

Allan Gurganus is a visiting scholar at UNC's Institute for the Arts and Humanities

Gurganus spent 1996 as a visiting fellow of UNC's Institute for the Arts and Humanities and presented at the institute's symposium Echoes of Home, Imitations of Return in Hill Hall that October.

Subject: Hill Hall

Black public works employees bring a discrimination charge against the Town of Chapel Hill

The Black Public Works Association, with the NAACP's help, filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging racial discrimination in promotions, pay and training in Chapel Hill's Public Works Department, where about 75 of some 110 employees were Black and none were managers. The EEOC assigned an investigator in the summer of 1996.

People: Cal Horton

Perry Deane Young writes a column for the Chapel Hill Herald

Young, a Vietnam War correspondent and author, wrote a column for the Chapel Hill Herald from 1996 to 2003.

The Hub closes after 37 years on East Franklin Street

Robert Rosenbacher's men's clothing store, open since 1959, shut in 1996 and a Starbucks coffee shop moved into its space.

The Village Companies sells WCHL to Curtis Media Group

The Village Companies sold WCHL, then the smallest of its dozen or so media outlets, to Curtis Media Group, which paired it with Durham's WDNC and moved it out of Chapel Hill.

Subject: WCHL radio

State reviewers back the Hogan Plantation site nomination over Orange County's objection

After a September 12, 1995 hearing, the Orange County Historic Preservation Commission found the Duke Forest site ineligible, and the county commissioners agreed, while the tract was under study for a new county landfill. That kept the nomination from the committee in October 1995 until Duke Forest appealed. On January 10, 1996 the committee heard the case, one member questioned whether landfill politics had shaped the county's finding, and it approved the nomination unanimously for the Keeper to decide.

Subject: Duke land purchases in Orange County

Chapel Hill Town Council recommends site OC-17 beside the Eubanks Road landfill for the next county landfill

After the search narrowed to four sites judged permittable, the council voted 7 to 2 to recommend a reduced site OC-17, adjacent to the existing landfill, as the county's next sanitary landfill. INDY Week reports that the county commissioners and the Hillsborough board also voted for it that month, with Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson opposed.

People: Mike Nelson

Chapel Hill authorizes buying land beside the landfill to widen its buffer

The council unanimously authorized the town manager to buy the 4.05-acre Wilson property adjoining the Eubanks Road landfill at $6,000 an acre to expand a minimal buffer, subject to approval by Carrboro and Orange County.

Fire at the Phi Gamma Delta house kills several students

Early on the morning of May 12, 1996, commencement day, fire swept the Phi Gamma Delta house on West Cameron Avenue, across from the Carolina Inn, and killed five students; three more were hurt. The house had no sprinklers, and the deaths pushed the university and the Greek houses to take fire safety seriously.

Four governing boards hold a unified public hearing on a new landfill next to the Eubanks Road site

The Orange County commissioners, Chapel Hill council, Carrboro aldermen and Hillsborough commissioners took comment on site 17 and three alternatives. Neighbours including David Caldwell, Kathy Schinley and Cornelius Kirschner spoke against it, B.B. Olive presented a 39-signature petition, and Frank Emory, representing Duke University, said the poorest residents lived nearest site 17.

People: David Caldwell Jr.

Frances Hargraves carries the Olympic torch down Franklin Street

The 1996 Olympic torch relay passed through Chapel Hill and Carrboro on its way to Atlanta. Frances Hargraves, 82, a retired special education teacher chosen as one of five Chapel Hill Community Heroes, took the flame from Chuck Stone at Columbia Street and carried it down Franklin Street.

People: Chuck Stone

The Historic District Commission approves tearing down the McDade House after a one-year delay

Chapel Hill's Historic District Commission granted University Baptist Church a certificate of appropriateness to demolish the brick McDade House, the last house still standing on that end of Franklin Street, but held off demolition for a year so preservationists could try to save it.

Subject: University Baptist Church

Hurricane Fran causes about 29,000 power outages in Chapel Hill

Trees on power lines caused about 29,000 outages in Chapel Hill; more than 12,000 residents were still without electricity on Sunday evening, September 8, and about 10,000 on Monday afternoon. Duke Power had 1,800 workers plus 1,000 on loan from other utilities in the area and expected to restore Chapel Hill by the middle or end of that week.

Hurricane Fran fells old trees on UNC's north campus

Fran brought down several roughly 200-year-old trees around New West Hall and left North Campus and Cameron Avenue covered in fallen trees, while the Davie Poplar survived. University power came back within hours, and Sitterson Hall opened as a place for people to recharge batteries, get ice and water and shower.

Subject: McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

Mayor Rosemary Waldorf declares a state of emergency in Chapel Hill after Hurricane Fran

Waldorf declared a town state of emergency on Friday, September 6, because of storm damage and power outages, and residents were urged to stay home; UNC cancelled Friday classes at 3 a.m. She partially lifted the emergency at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, September 10, keeping it in force where utility crews were still working.

OWASA issues a boil-water advisory after Hurricane Fran knocks out its pumping

The Orange Water and Sewer Authority told Chapel Hill and Carrboro customers to boil water from Friday evening, September 6, after its University Lake pump station lost power and the system lost pressure, and the wastewater plant flooded. The advisory was lifted at 1:50 p.m. Monday, September 9, after lab tests found no contamination; the area drew emergency water from Durham, and a conservation order was lifted soon after.

UNC suspends afternoon classes for a campuswide Hurricane Fran cleanup

Chancellor Michael Hooker suspended classes from noon on Wednesday so students, faculty and staff could clear storm debris. Nearly 1,000 students reported to the Old Well within the first hour, working with University forester Kirk Pelland's crews, and Coker Arboretum staff expected their cleanup to run into the winter.

People: Michael Hooker

Subject: The Old Well

A 70-foot oak weakened by Hurricane Fran falls on Venable Hall

A 70-foot white oak fell against Venable Hall at about 2:10 p.m., damaging handrails on the building's steps; no one was hurt. University forester Kirk Pelland said Fran's winds and Wednesday's heavy rain had left many old campus trees at risk, and Executive Vice Chancellor Elson Floyd asked people to report damaged trees to the Grounds Division.

People: Elson S. Floyd

Subject: Venable Hall

Ben Folds Five record Whatever and Ever Amen at Folds's Chapel Hill home

After a summer on the Lollapalooza tour, the band recorded its second album in the small living room of Folds's Chapel Hill house with producer Caleb Southern. The album went on to sell more than a million copies.

Chapel Hill building inspectors count homes destroyed and damaged by Hurricane Fran

The town's Building Inspection Department reported four homes near Airport Road, Homestead Road and Culbreth Road destroyed, 391 homes with major damage and 222 with minor damage.

Orange Regional Landfill takes Hurricane Fran yard waste free as Chapel Hill faces tens of thousands of tons of debris

The Orange Regional Landfill on Eubanks Road accepted yard waste at no charge until further notice. Town Manager Cal Horton estimated Chapel Hill had 25,000 to 40,000 tons of fallen limbs and trees and said the town would eventually remove curbside debris, while urging residents to haul debris to the landfill themselves.

People: Cal Horton

The Botanical Garden gives William Lanier Hunt its Flora Caroliniana Award

The North Carolina Botanical Garden presented Hunt with its Flora Caroliniana Award as founder of the Botanical Garden Foundation, land donor and supporter of the garden, the day before he died.

Subject: North Carolina Botanical Garden

Allan Gurganus and Marly Youmans sign books to fund a Habitat for Humanity house

Hillsborough novelist Allan Gurganus and Carrboro author Marly Youmans signed books at the Intimate Bookshop in Eastgate, with 15 percent of the evening's sales going to a new Habitat for Humanity house sponsored by seven fraternities and sororities and four parishes.

Subject: The Intimate Bookshop

UNC tears down the Scuttlebutt, the wartime Navy canteen

The Scuttlebutt snack bar at Cameron Avenue and South Columbia Street, built as a Pre-Flight School canteen, was razed after more than fifty years of feeding students.

Subject: The Scuttlebutt

Assembly of Governments agrees compensation items for neighbors of the landfill

Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro met as an Assembly of Governments in 1997 to take up benefits for people living near the Orange Regional Landfill and agreed a set of compensation items. In 2007 Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton wrote that not all of them had been carried out.

People: Mark Chilton

Beta Theta Pi alumni begin renovating the chapter house

Following an alumni capital campaign, work began in 1997 to bring the 1929 house up to code while keeping its plan and original materials; architect and Beta alumnus Arthur Cogswell Jr. led it, and the Betas were the first fraternity to add a sprinkler system after the 1996 fire.

People: Arthur Cogswell

Subject: Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House

Valerie Foushee is elected to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board

Foushee was elected to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro city schools board in 1997 and served until 2004, pressing for equity in the schools. It was the first of the local offices she held over 25 years in local and state government.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

Chapel Hill's Town Council votes to move the McDade House to a town parking lot

After months of debate, the Town Council voted unanimously to move the McDade House off University Baptist Church's land to Parking Lot 5, between Franklin, Church and Rosemary streets, to save it from demolition.

Subject: University Baptist Church

The McDade House is taken apart brick by brick and carted away from West Franklin Street

When it could not be moved whole before the church's deadline, the McDade House was dismantled piece by piece under a plan approved by the Historic District Commission and paid for by real estate appraiser Tom Heffner. The work finished on July 11, 1997, and the parts went into storage in Franklinton to await rebuilding on the town lot.

Chapel Hill approves digging on the Neville Tract to build new landfill cells

The council voted 9 to 0 for a special use permit letting the Orange Regional Landfill take earth from the Neville Tract to build containment cells and for daily cover, with access across landfill property to Eubanks Road. Work was to begin by 1999 and end by 2007.

Charles Kuralt is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Kuralt died on July 4, 1997 and was buried on the UNC campus in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. About 1,600 people attended a memorial service in Memorial Hall, where Hugh Morton and William C. Friday spoke.

People: William C. Friday

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Memorial Hall

William C. Friday receives the National Humanities Medal

President Clinton and Hillary Clinton presented Friday with one of the first National Humanities Medals. The NEH cited him as president emeritus of the University of North Carolina, which he led from 1956 to 1986, and executive director of the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trusts.

People: Bill Clinton

A bronze statue of James K. Polk is dedicated on University Day

A bronze statue by the Marshville sculptor Stephen H. Smith, showing Polk as a young man speaking to a crowd and standing on a carved outline of the United States, was dedicated on University Day 1997.

Duke University easement to NASA stalls landfill candidate site OC-17

Chapel Hill's manager reported that Duke University had filed an easement in favor of NASA on candidate site OC-17, leaving the towns unable to test the land. The council voted 8 to 0 to have the town attorney write to the U.S. Attorney and called an Assembly of Governments for October 22, 1997.

People: Cal Horton

Former UNC police officer C. E. Swain sues the university

Alan McSurely filed suit for C. E. Swain, a fired UNC police officer, alleging discrimination and violation of his constitutional rights; Swain said he came under pressure after ticketing the daughter of trustee Billy Armfield. The two asked the Black Student Movement for support the next day.

People: Michael Hooker

A Knapp Foundation gift funds an addition, renamed the Knapp-Sanders Building

The Knapp Foundation contributed to a large addition to the Institute of Government building, and the name was extended to honor John Lassiter Sanders, the Institute's second director.

People: John L. Sanders

Subject: Institute of Government

General Assembly creates the UNC Health Care System

Legislation in 1998 created the UNC Health Care System, bringing UNC Hospitals and the clinical work of the School of Medicine under one entity.

Subject: UNC School of Medicine · UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital)

Project HomeStart opens

Project HomeStart, transitional housing for homeless families on Homestead Road, opened in 1998 as a joint project of the Inter-Faith Council and the Orange County/Durham Coalition for Battered Women. By October it housed five families; it now runs as IFC's HomeStart shelter for women and families.

Subject: Inter-Faith Council for Social Service

Sara Foster opens a Chapel Hill branch of Foster's Market

Sara Foster opened a second Foster's Market at 750 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Chapel Hill as an expansion of her Durham restaurant.

Wallace Kuralt closes the Intimate Bookshop's East Franklin Street store

Forced to cut back, Kuralt gave up all but one of his Intimate Bookshops, and the one he kept was not the long-time store at 119 East Franklin. The empty building was to be remodeled for a Sephora cosmetics shop.

Subject: The Intimate Bookshop

West Chapel Hill joins the Study List as a historic district

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the West Chapel Hill neighborhood as a historic district on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. It came to the committee as a public request.

The Earnhardt family gives Triangle Land Conservancy an easement on the Andrews farm

Jean and John Earnhardt, Troy and Robin Andrews's daughter and son-in-law, and their sons' families donated a conservation easement to Triangle Land Conservancy in March 1998, protecting 120 acres of the old Andrews farm around Bolin Creek from development.

Subject: Bolin Brook Farm (Troy and Roberta Andrews House)

Annie Dillard joins the Rubin writers panel at the North Carolina Literary Festival

At the North Carolina Literary Festival at UNC, Dillard sat on a panel of writers who had studied under Louis Rubin, with Lee Smith, Katie Letcher Lyle, Margaret Gibson, Sylvia Wilkinson and Elizabeth Seydel Morgan, in Hamilton Hall.

People: Lee Smith · Louis D. Rubin Jr. · Sylvia Wilkinson

Elizabeth Spencer reads in Memorial Hall at the North Carolina Literary Festival

Spencer gave a program in Memorial Hall on the Saturday of the North Carolina Literary Festival at UNC, sponsored by the Center for the Study of the American South.

Subject: Memorial Hall

State and university leaders welcome UNC President Molly Broad at a dinner in Chapel Hill

On the eve of her inauguration as the 15th president of the UNC system, hundreds of state and university leaders, including Gov. Jim Hunt and former presidents Bill Friday and C. D. Spangler, gathered at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center to welcome Molly Corbett Broad.

People: William C. Friday · C. D. Spangler Jr.

Mike Fox is named UNC head baseball coach

Athletic director Dick Baddour hired Fox, a former Tar Heel second baseman, as the 24th head coach in UNC baseball history. He came from 15 seasons at N.C. Wesleyan College and took over before the 1999 season.