Six Honored with Davie Award

Posted on Nov. 16, 2023

The Board of Trustees presented the William Richardson Davie Award to four alumni and two other recipients on Nov. 8. The award is the highest honor given by the board for service to the University or society.

Receiving the awards were Terrence Burroughs ’82, William “Bill” Cobey Jr., Edith Hubbard ’66 (’69 MACT), Charles “Chuck” Lovelace Jr. ’77 (’79 MBA), Genna Rae McNeil and Dwight Stone ’73.

Established by trustees in 1984, the award is named after the Revolutionary War hero who won passage of the 1789 bill chartering the University.

Burroughs has a bachelor of science in pharmacy from Carolina and an MBA in marketing and finance from Wake Forest University. He is CEO and president of Burroughs Management Group, a healthcare consulting company specializing in health-care costs. He and his wife, Terri Brown Burroughs ’83, were the first African Americans to endow a scholarship in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy.

Burroughs was honored with the GAA’s Harvey E. Beech Outstanding Alumni Award in 2007, and he has presided over the National Pharmaceutical Association and the University’s Board of Visitors.

Cobey’s Carolina journey began in 1968 as the academic adviser for Coach Bill Dooley’s football team. Ascending through various roles, he served as athletic director from 1975 to 1980 and oversaw expansion of women’s athletics. He was later elected to Congress in 1984, representing North Carolina’s 4th congressional district, and he chaired the N.C. Board of Education from 2013 to 2018.

Hubbard, the second Black woman to graduate from UNC, transferred to Carolina from Bennett College in 1964. After completing a master’s degree in college teaching, she contributed significantly to education and public service. In the 1990s, Hubbard returned to Carolina as associate director of research services, helping manage the University’s research portfolio and pioneering electronic research software. She was honored with the GAA’s Harvey E. Beech Trailblazer Award in 2016.

Lovelace, a Morehead Scholar, retired in 2021 as the executive director of the Morehead-Cain Foundation and played a pivotal role in its growth. The foundation, which oversees a merit-based scholarship program, received a $100 million contribution from the Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation in 2007, doubling the number of scholarships it awards. Lovelace was bestowed the Order of the Long Leaf Pine by Gov. Roy Cooper ’79 (’82 JD) in 2020, and the Distinguished Service Medal by Carolina Alumni in 2022.

McNeil, professor emerita of history, received the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award for her book Groundwork: Charles Hamilton Houston and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Recognized as the definitive biography of Houston, the book includes amicus curiae briefs to the Supreme Court in the landmark case Regents of the University of California v. Allan Bakke (1978).

Stone, president and chair of D. Stone Builders Inc. in Greensboro, served on the UNC System Board of Governors and the University’s Board of Trustees from 2013 to 2019, including a stint as chair from 2014 to 2017. Stone is a member of the Rams Club executive board of directors, and he was awarded the GAA’s Distinguished Service Medal by in 2018.