Storyline · 1982–1984
The lighted star that advertised Morehead Planetarium's Christmas show was taken down in December 1982 at Chancellor Christopher Fordham's request, after a law professor called it a religious symbol on a state building, and it stayed down in 1983. Citing a Supreme Court ruling on a nativity scene, Fordham lifted his order in 1984, and the star went back up that November.
For 20 years a six-pointed lighted star had advertised Morehead Planetarium's Christmas show, The Star of Bethlehem. On December 16, 1982 it was taken down at the request of Chancellor Christopher C. Fordham III, after a UNC law professor wrote that a religious symbol did not belong on a state building. Letters to local papers and to Fordham and President William Friday were mostly critical, and Chapel Hill ministers were divided. By November 29, 1983 the chancellor's office had told the planetarium not to put the star up that season; director Lee T. Shapiro called it an advertisement, not a religious symbol, but said the decision appeared to be indefinite. On March 8, 1984, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that a city-owned nativity scene did not violate the separation of church and state, Fordham withdrew his order, and Shapiro said the star would go up in May for the planetarium's 35th anniversary and again at Christmas. It went back up on the dome on November 15, 1984, and Shapiro said he had received no complaints.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
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People with a page of their own whom the dated events above name, those named most often first.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
A picture book for children about Tony Jenzano, 1919 to 1997, the Morehead Planetarium director who trained the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts in celestial navigation at Chapel Hill. Michael G. Neece's account, published in Chapel Hill in 2020, covers astronaut training, the teaching of astronomy and the planetarium itself for young readers.
Donald S. Hall's 1965 booklet on the Morehead Planetarium at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, published by the university. Illustrations, floor plans and a portrait fill its twenty eight pages. Topics include planetariums in Chapel Hill and the building itself, so it reads as a guide to the facility.
A guide to the meeting rooms and services of the Morehead Building at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, issued by the university in 2000. It concerns convention facilities in Chapel Hill. A short promotional piece for groups booking space on campus, and a record of what the building offered visitors at the turn of the century.
Marguerite E. Schumann's booklet on the Morehead Planetarium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, printed in 1976 by the university print shop, with her authorship noted on the cover. Planetariums in Chapel Hill is the subject given, and the booklet is a published guide to one of the campus landmarks.
Episode of the North Carolina People television program, broadcast in 1988 by North Carolina Public Television as program number 1750 and recorded here as a 29 minute videocassette. The guest is Christopher C. Fordham III, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Chancellor's office records from the tenure of Carol L. Folt at Chapel Hill, 2013 to 2018, 8 linear feet in the University Archives at UNC, collection 40024. Topics include university administration and educational fund raising, curriculum planning, health occupations schools and medical education, and race relations and college integration in North Carolina. Holden Thorp and Christopher C. Fordham also appear.
Groundbreaking for the George Watts Hill Alumni Center at UNC-Chapel Hill on 13 May 1989. The group includes Ralph Strayhorn, George Watts Hill, Doug Dibbert, trustees chairman Robert C. Eubanks and Tom Lambeth, with Paul Hardin and Christopher C. Fordham also pictured. Hugh Morton photograph.
Chancellor Christopher C. Fordham III posed with the scholar Robin Hadley in 1985. A single print among the UNC Faculty and Administration photographs of the Chapel Hill Historical Society, CHHS.002.
Adam Lucas marks one hundred years of basketball at the University of North Carolina in this illustrated history, published by UNC Press in 2010 in association with the athletics department. Chapters follow the program from the game's arrival on campus and the 'White Phantoms' of the Southern Conference through the founding of the ACC, the 1957 season, Dean Smith's changes to the game and the title seasons of 1982, 1993, 2005 and 2009, closing with a century of statistics. 289 pages.
Rick Jackson's true crime history of Chapel Hill, published by The History Press in 2023, in 28 short chapters. Cases include the Efland bank robbery, the execution of John Henry Breeze, the unsolved murder of Suellen Evans, the killing at the Internationalist Bookstore and the death of Eve Carson.
The Duke and North Carolina basketball rivalry written together by Johnny Moore and Art Chansky, the latter a sports reporter who has followed it since his student days at UNC. The book opens with the 2014 season and moves through recruiting battles old and new, 'Black and Blue Sunday', 'Blood and Roses', and chapters on the rivalry's heroes, leaders and teachers, with a foreword by Jay Bilas and a photo gallery. Published by Triumph Books in 2014, 289 pages.
H. G. Jones follows the fortune of Mary Ruffin Smith (1814-1885), the unmarried heiress whose Orange and Chatham County lands passed at her death to the University of North Carolina and the Episcopal Church. Chapters profile her grandfather Francis Jones, then trace the bequest through a quarrel among Episcopalians over Price Creek, the Chapel of the Cross and the university's buildings. A December 1885 New York Times report called the gift money; Jones shows it was land. Published by McFarland in 2014, 231 pages.
Steven J. Tepper's chronicle of how the University of North Carolina marked its bicentennial in 1993 and 1994. An appendix reprints the University Day speeches of October 12, 1993, given by Paul Hardin, James B. Hunt Jr., C.D. Spangler, William C. Friday, Charles Kuralt and President Bill Clinton, plus bicentennial addresses by Li Lu, Francis S. Collins and Richard J. Richardson. Published by the university in Chapel Hill, 1998; 284 pages.
Art Chansky's 2016 account of Dean Smith, Charlie Scott and the years that changed Chapel Hill as a Southern college town. Scott was the first Black scholarship player in the Carolina basketball program. Topics include civil rights, racism in sports and the university's twentieth-century history.
Biography of William C. Friday, president of the University of North Carolina system, by historian William A. Link, published by UNC Press in 1995 with the subtitle power, purpose, and American higher education. It covers Friday's career and the history of the university at Chapel Hill and statewide. Part of the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection.
William D. Snider's history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1992. It runs 370 pages with illustrations, a bibliography and an index.
Reviewed in History of Education Quarterly (1993), The Journal of Southern History (1993).
Twelve essays by novelist Daphne Athas (1923-2020) on the Chapel Hill she knew across the twentieth century. Subjects include Carrboro as 'the Paris of the Piedmont', philosopher Horace Williams, Betty Smith writing in Chapel Hill, Junius Scales, Ab Abernethy and the Intimate Bookshop, Richard Wright's visit, and a set of Chapel Hill murders. Published 2010, 243 pages with illustrations.
Scott Fowler gathers recollections from Carolina basketball players, decade by decade from the 1950s to the 2000s, organized around Roy Williams and the question in the title. Contributors include Lennie Rosenbluth, Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham, Charlie Scott, Phil Ford, James Worthy, Brad Daugherty, Eric Montross, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Raymond Felton and Sean May, each entry giving position and playing years. Published 2010 by Triumph Books of Chicago, 270 pages, here as an e-book.
Archibald Henderson's history of the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, its buildings and grounds from the founding in the 1790s onward. Henderson, a professor of mathematics and a prolific historian of the university, wrote it in the years around the university's sesquicentennial. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 412 pages with illustrations and bibliographical footnotes.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1949), South Atlantic Quarterly (1950).
Charles Phillips Russell's biography of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908), the Chapel Hill writer remembered for ringing the bell of South Building when the university reopened in 1875 after its closure during Reconstruction. It doubles as a history of Chapel Hill and the university. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 293 pages with illustrations.
Reviewed in Journal of American History (1949).
Each dated event above names its source, the place to start. For finding more on an event across newspapers, records and histories, see the research guide Follow an event across several accounts. Ask at the North Carolina Room of the Orange County Public Library for help with local sources.
Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “The Morehead Planetarium star, 1982–1984.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/planetarium-star-storyline-1982/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
