The State of Things; Meet Bill Friday

fb fb this is the state of things i'm david crabtree in for frank station growing up till friday wanted to be a baseball

player instead he got on the fast track the university administration and at age thirty six became president of the university of north carolina system his thirty year career in higher education was punctuated by campaigned for racial equality intellectual freedom and integrity and athletics and today he has one of north carolina's most influential and well connected leaders in higher education as well as the voice of the longest running program a local public television we'll learn more about the forces that shape though friday and the events that defined his career just ahead on the state or are our power fb

from the american tobacco historic district this is the state of

things i'm david crabtree and for french they show today to many north carolinians he needs no introduction but even if you're a newcomer you probably know the name bill friday you've heard of you and sees friday center for continuing education and you may have seen his program north carolina people on unc tv but he's much more than the friendly face of local public television's longest running program during his thirty year career as president of the university of north carolina bill friday oversaw the expansion of the system from three to sixteen campuses and presided over the desegregation of all of north carolina's public universities among his many platforms he is a tireless advocate for racial equality and for high academic standards and ethics in collegiate athletics and he joins me in the studio today to tell us how he came to one of north carolina's most influential leaders how it came to be that leader bill friday good to have you in the studio as always great to see you then it's good to see you again thank you for you can work to be much too generous but before you start talking with me i'll

never about enlisting this program know so iran not too long ago were the north carolina broadcasters argue for your splendid career public service i'm like all who saw a mole with accurate to show congratulations steve you're very kind of i feel like it was a lifetime achievement we're going too young for that as well and that well johnson thank you ok take people back to your childhood for a moment we'll get to what you're doing today a little later but you grew up in dallas and north carolina not texas's i gaston county small town very small county seat at one time you go down there and i think we now have four stoplights but you see the old courthouse you can see the old jail you can see the old hotel where the lawyers would come to argue cases lived back in the middle of the nineteenth century it's a sleepy town but utterly wonderful places starkly but david

growing up in a small town as we was eighty eight yuan a burst out of it but when you get older you never forget what you learned with people who were pioneers in the sense of these individuals were that they built these little communities and they built the industry so there and you learn how to trust and learn what integrity meant you know what our work and this is one of the great experiences of you have the privilege of growing up you're in trouble or you know we sneak out of school and then who hadn't done around the car the building saw the press will come in his car and we ought to go play baseball we were good school that i've known but you needed all of them and say sportsmen and you survived yet and that you learned from it to admit that it was that was a way bigger deal in there along the way your dad was mayor there a threat that didn't get his post secondary education was one summer school at

chapel hill twenty and he was a very industrious personally came off the farm and hear he did was determined that his children would all go to college experience of the reform we're four brothers and a sister and three of us have two degrees back our degrees in a lot of great music and my assistant rather next to me who are college graduates so he succeeded in his mission there was a very hard worker a kind of issues we're facing the mayor of dallas back in those days and those days it was the depths of the depression even a question about fire truck does build a water system and down is the very their means of existence of lots of people and it was a struggling blue commuted rosa county seated moved across the creaking guess tony had been born and it took all

that our lives its life moving sophomore the depression had a great impact on everyone who lived through it in attack couldn't agree more effects me even today all these years later because you know when you're a teenager and you see human suffering museum and deprivation and you see the disease and women both flour with uncertain sex because they were great gain in patterns fill it made dresses out of the sex i sat beside a dear friend of mine and i notice that irish morning when he came to classes he had collected all grocery bags knee tore them up and flatten thought that could be his notebook paper this kind of thing you see here seventy years later i don't forget that but what it would it take issue is the adversity as a way of like you know you survive but did you have an awareness of what's going on around you and

the way that you don't get one time to do good go you know you don't run away from this very visibly seen human suffering in a bit so people who are on a national tour and changed to a virtually unknown and that that has stuck with me is why i was so interested in working in the party movement north carolina and these kind of things did you are listening you know i was lucky my bed was a bookkeeper and mother taught music she had she's very good piano and we have a little bit of an uncomfortable it was nothing fancy but we survived imaginable would yield that you skipped classes you or to go play baseball ok you want to be a baseball player a prison professional every kid wanted greenberg knows days opposition to trickle out a catcher or your catcher pretty good eight hours

the neighboring community of cherry will form the first american legion jr team up there and i was recruited to our move by what the dow lost a cheerio and i lived in that in the back his house there in the summer work in a cotton mill from seven to twelve and played baseball and twelve to forget in and oh yeah that was a great experience and you have a favorite major league team now oh i've always been present prejudice toward atlanta braves i'm prepared to many people at that scene and i presume you followed the the un sees drake back to the world series this oral history really and i just heard this morning that young maier one is game it to broadway yesterday and i keep up with these young men and terrified representatives of our universe if he ever regrets with a great like you've had that baseball as a profession got away from you know no because i realize i was never go mike i knew i was i

could play pretty good game that subjugate pulling at me you got to go do something that one of the things you did in doing something else was going to college ok you're in the depression era time how in the world did you get into college the minister in the baptist church there are new of the program a wake forest he wrote do a wonderful gentleman named ed bradley was dean of the college my dad and i wrote up there not afford one saturday morning walked in the dean brands obviously looked up at me and he said sunday you're in a college class and i certainly do yeah little for many poor that if this was a fifty dollars tuition scholarship that's away bill friday get political the kindness of that many many years later in a celebration of president the present workforce retirement i saw mame brown's daughter in the audience so i said i'm on interrupt my tribute to comment by tom or not telling a little story matt dolan

argues many years old time great great happiness for me stuart wake forest would wake forest was in wake forest beautiful campus are going on on a bus there everybody knew everybody else chief justice joseph branch randy food get mess hall well a we all have a great time and that automobile nc state because my dad was an activist and nc state you got there and family but you're going to go one direction in the course of human events change that that world war two a backlash was a classic nineteen forty one we've literally marched off the graduation platform and nc state's great in the military service most of the men in their classmate war or a pc trainees and they've done well and they were the they were the boys who really got into war or two very role but through the depression and that experienced literally turn my generation around as tom

brokaw wrote a nice book and go oh we came out of that experience very different people what are more about that in a labor before we wrap up this segment obviously a major player in your life has been your wife i am all my sixty five years together where it all started with a blind date at a football game against the state it took me man wants a very hard work but i finally got persuaded her and that was sixty five years ago this past may and i remember someone asking her if it was loaded for saudi community to be the answer she said oh heavens no us are or recently she does is she looks like she's twenty years younger well as one of those people who really enjoys life figures of yourself to everything in the world and she's helped create things they're in the women's center in the capital preservation is it better or work was she chaired the board of the

mosque on into the moment stroke commissioner we're in rolla statewide commission she's done so many things and she raised our children when i was sober is we have three daughters and spirit through was a wanted to have wings to removal this is the state of things were talking today with bill friday president emeritus of the university of north carolina chapel hill just ahead we'll hear about the dixie classic the speaker ban and more the defining events until friday's thirty year career at the helm of unc you're listing to the state of things from north carolina public radio broadcast service of the university of north carolina at chapel hill as it

is nina thanks is being in the polls

this is the state of things broadcasting from the american tobacco historic district i'm david gregory in for frank say show we're talking this hour with bill friday the man who led the university of north carolina for thirty years and it has been doing interviews with north carolinian from all walks of life for thirty seven years as part of his public television program north carolina people it's been thirty seven i had all this eighteen hundred programs so bobby star producer says i hadn't kept out david a few minutes ago about forty were talking about childhood and growing up in dallas this is obviously during the era of the jim crow south at what point did you realize your awareness about racial inequality it comes very soon life when you live in a

structured situation way we did it was a male community the line was carefully drawn residents live in a community like a very small town you feel it who we were trying to play a sad love baseball in those days are we had integration for anybody else ever found out about it was it worked out and we would good and a play in our head a players in there was a pitcher and act and was better than any of us no we would always draft him to come and play with us but it was a slow process change comes hard on matters like race lead it's inevitable it's a it's a kind of thing that human beings must face it must must do and that was it was it was there though that i learned that inequality is real and hard and you also saw in the military well i wasn't wild in the navy and i wasn't a

particular location where we had the very the very first racial riot in the united states navy and were awarded to women encampment outside of this big ammunition facility where i was stationed in was a norfolk yes in the fifth maybe a script and one night the coca cola company had these big bands that traveled around your service camps and they had a concert scheduled for this group of one thousand afro americans who've been trained in the ammunition half years they made a big mistake they had the concert first for the officers and then to the enlisted men when the first concert ended when she was a been broken when the big porcelain coffee cups and tires had been cut and in those days they didn't to run the military police moved right in the cap and was removed from command some very harsh kind of that education still plays there's russell

david what justice really demanded an attack is one the reasons i got so i should go on a law school and but it was a very vivid experience for me because it's so completely disrupted everything i was working and i thought we were all involved in the same cars would win the war so to speak it was a joke and then you come out of the military well we've got twenty twenty one twenty two but no i was twenty six right out of the military and you know also at the time i left i left a charleston at ardent first there were and seven days later on role of the law school at chapel hill in nineteen forty six did you want to practice law at the time or did you want a background of law at to really didn't intend a practice shirt and come out of the text of business and spend a short time with dupont company for the war and i have one order

burlington mills and knocked on the door and they had a big large little division that i was told was no room for and i went back to chapel hill david in that i was finishing her the commitment of the general education board fellowship which she had cause she is getting a master's degree in public health and asked about that this temporary job with an old friend of mine for weaver who was a wonderful man and we've known each other and doing his duties were before and let them to get temporary job ran from nineteen forty eight to nineteen eighty six and in fifty six years you become president you're very secure for me that's pretty heavy stuff scary stuff that outlet had been mr gray's a system for five years before the day and i'm i got to know the work of the office pretty well and been particularly

what it what the demands were upon him and now i met with the executive committee the board the governor's office one morning and i will forget this and the discussion was about what to do about the university and that is degrade gone back to washington and our chief academic officer had taken another position and the only other person left in the opposite end of acting praises him before he it wanted more or less so i left that conversation that walked out of the capitol building and that afterwards bagley my mother nonstop concert to myself you know this is not for me and i turned around and literally i walked up to the cabinet door and put my hand on the big blow that door open and are a lot of other stop acid then just going back in and turned to leave people what to do about the anniversary of it must say so i close the door no one on up to nc state and that the remains

littered going on just calms them back then that we will see if that's a way that the way to happen early and your presidency two controversial decisions made by you the first of all the basketball tournament known as the dixie classic some people say its servers that for runner the of the final four as we know it now why did you make the decision to political well it was really a decision made with him a captain john cohen him and me we all got together once we've been the laws were the district attorney of the gambling threats have been taken place in this tournament and we knew that it when human life is threatened you don't have any option david you have you have to remove the caucus and i need to say that in this class river wake forest do nc state ten personal care law it was the biggest basketball tournament in america weak oscar robertson came to play their

job going on at all the great themes of the court case he put it together was a great idea and that when you get face with the snow and the realities right there in front of you have to do with it and that's why the decision was made to remove it and i knew that was not going to be a popular position and i knew that it had to be a decision administration universe to make victory in the political arena i would never ever happen and a lot of people were upset with you all is the long time before i could go back to raleigh nc lot of folks with a smile on a facebook and a legislature tried to tried twice to enact a lot or do it with the good sense prevailed and we've done other things before we get the that other controversial decision stick a sport for just more because you're the county co chairman of the knight foundation commission on intercollegiate athletics from eighty nine to two thousand five we've talked about this a lot in the past

the whole culture of big time sports has changed a lot since the dixie classic obviously but it still a major concern of yours today last month myles brand new aegean sea devil and made a statement that the hundred making institutions at play won a sports that's the big damp for fewer than ten broke even last year finance this tells you you see how he uses operation is becalmed most people don't know david that taxpayers underwrite quite a bit of this keeping the arena's openness is kind of activist but what i worry about is exaggeration of emphasis we become an entertainment industry we're not playing football the way we did in the forties for the fun of it is a really a big time has soured operation that the saints to keep on going and restraint know some changes happening here recently better standards now of academics and i think the

coaches understand that you got to you got to you achieve in the classroom you don't get blamed for a no please are not changed because the us out of that equation is that one out of one hundred of these young men and women who played collegiate sports ever make a living and it was only the campus so i think the institution has a moral duty to see to it that these young people who's who to return for this kind of activity get that kind of education that they can live profitably all the wrestler lives bother you when the young men like brandon wright leaves after one year not that he will be alert a living i mean he shouldn't he stays healthy should be set financially a lot of what remains david is it the nba is using these institutions are farm produce a football in the national football league in them and the major league in baseball will not talk to his doonan do you finish your junior year competition basketball's ill a place where this is open

now i just don't think that's a sound practice i really know it doesn't qualify that young person to iran oscar robertson's peace no new york times about a week ago in which he said that the fact that they kept him and made him finish his academic problem was the greatest gift he denies that his college degree meant more to him than any athletic achievement in his life this is the this is what matter where we are now the genie is out of the body and that is do you ever see that coming back as well i would hope so i think the president's natasha's around the country said no are aware of the dangers and there are many apple that doesn't take a disaster because of action to take place you never put it back in the way it was but we can do a lot better than we're doing now and we thought we ought to be about it that's why the knight commission is still acted like a nineteen sixty three

speaker buy a lot of cold war is anything but call me people have communist fear is coming at them left and right members of the communist party want to be able to speak in chapel hill the legislature's saying no way well that particular bill i think was a prop was the product of quite a few frustrations faculty demonstrations faculty actually down in front of that what was then the sort of tale where they roughed up some legislate or is accidentally and the way students were so volatile about it i think two things rbc at the university of north carolina kept its hit during this entire business but like with vietnam and you know the most nobody burn the building within stopped eating school would install crisis will have free discussions the passage of that always done under suspension of routes with no

hearings no no there's no opportunity for anybody say anything i was called in the middle of the afternoon i got in my car drove straight to the hotel's i knew that's where the people were i walked in the lobby lobbyist commitments in what he doing acid you know i'm here you go about running universal at a careless i said no you don't know if they were going to discuss this we came within two votes that afternoon to reversing that the judge hamilton i'll never forget him as a senator stood right up and said this is a more coal is cutting of the university's academic freedom and we'll never be a part of it got nothing and i guess david to be truthful about it the saddest moment of my years of piano where she was when i was there on the campus of moral in the youtube comments does do to start down the sidewalk and three thousand dude from years of the iraq war are listening to them you guess what the picture made the papers of every major newspaper in america the next day this as freedom at

chapel hill there was nothing to fear it didn't say so at the time that the fbi did in this particular reason was was very good to me would come and talk with me and asking for my is our innate it trail here at all that you can document says there's nothing here he would he would he was trying to help steer the course of a wonderful man we had to go through it but i think here again is where you learn something from adversity sense that law was declared unconstitutional we've had speakers that state and carolina are cancers much more volatile much more vociferous and those two people are openly and no one said where we define the limits of freedom of speech we know it's essential to the health and well meaning of a university we know

university in exist without it so it we know it's a part of our lives and were not afraid that people say what they think so obviously it was well worth it for you to take that stand you know at a stand was possible and it was long and hard it was mean spirited pounds but that's why you're there but get to work did your close friends or did your wife ever say you will you maybe to back off a little bit here comedian the walk this tight rope a little more gingerly but it was the only vote that i ever lost an executive committee the board i tried my best to persuade them to a point of view but they would not support me and that's why with the litigation still embody present them with a wonderful lawyer greensboro max mayer follow the action they are by knew what was going to happen the minute he got into federal court laws were lawyers we knew what all the presidents were what was their fear

feet on monday ask amy get any guilt we were thinking forty four years ago david at bottom of race in this racial tension it was communism was something to be afraid of that fell so low speed was so intense about their daughter was a comet ison every building a job will almost but there was not a single one on the campus and you ask a moment ago i was as was my source of strength he kept saying to me this is why we hear this is what the universe has four we will make it we will weather this of course will sustain the position and that's what have you developed a great appreciation for free speech during your childhood and dallas close to the nineteen twenty nine mil strike or years you remember that in your room or what happened to people there who took a stand that was not necessarily what the status quo wanted him to say and do my predecessor frank graham went down then shine the bail bond and that

one of those incidences yes i wrote i remember reading from the mill that my father and i are so good stacked in st edward's a listen and the national guard has been called up to do for the fearfulness of the strike and what was being threatened conversation that people it led to the murder and that that produced hysteria in a famous trial lawsuit there in estonia but it is taking lifetime for that he'll that will lead you in that community and very good people in morrow dinner special on the program on that cbs did to dramatize out our country can change that much change as we move will look i'm a greater nation that fear david is it terribly compelling force when people don't know and don't understand at and don't take the

time especially when as at bottom economics after year to take my place but you lose much i lose my job these kind of things are very real and very hard one more question before we go to break this coming friday the thirteenth is your birthday right at seventy seven years old ah they're a lot of votes or fifty seven like meat with a mind that is nowhere nearly as sharp as yours is today you told me that you push your mind every day well i've read and listen to enough of the medical profession to know that the way to have a productive senior year cycle is to keep your mind that if you could go touche to elements of that exercise physical bodily exercise and mental gymnastics as much as you put your mind when you get up in the more woke up pick up the paper just don't do that look around listen sitting here

border to watch what's going on around this what makes your mind move and you begin to build up a warehouse in your mind a wonderful members and you get flashbacks of the time they used to go fishing analyst jonathan where and tobago heard today david we we raced to do too many things we're talking with joe friday to serve as president of the university of north carolina for thirty years has been hosting north carolina people are new in cpb for thirty seven years just a cavalier about average to desegregate the campuses of the unc system plus the arrival of public television in north carolina on the state of things stay with us fb fb

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nice butt this is the state of things i'm david crabtree in for frank stay show we're talking this hour with bill friday president emeritus of the university of north carolina and host of the popular television show north carolina people on unc tv and friday we talked earlier about the way the racial divide you experienced in childhood and the military

came to influence your career in higher education you get the range of the unc system at them dawn of the civil rights era that one of the defining event of that time was the arrival of state troopers on campus back in nineteen sixty eight during a sit in at the newly formed a black student movement how that come to be and what was that tension like well all universes in the country that time were under stress and this is why those experiences in life david where you live day by day and it was literally you've never knew what would be happening because with so many forces that work out there but here again i thank the university community and the state show that degree of civility or online places where they fired shots and burned buildings and adults kind of things and an end the riots that took place integrating the university of north carolina are actually became a twelve year

journey home the argument that was being made it was much as to how to achieve numbers let me illustrate quickly us to chapel hill as a business grew it was say one it in say central it was an education school a second education school at chapel hill that there was well as close the education school at chapel hill and all the folks who go to separate and as close to business school or separate and often ago the universe tap a little while this is mark and blow for a tenant situation forced placed second place you dealing entirely different atmosphere tenured teachers contracts all kinds of differentiation different kinds of academic standards of additional lives but the idea of closing down operations to gain numerical game was not going to work and we tried desperately up and sadism and made all kinds of pledges to

achieve the same kind of rate of the integration which was fifteen percent and in the end we succeed well listen this argument realm for several presidents and servile secretaries and finally wound up in the supreme court united states in the supreme court agreed with our position but it was a long journey and it was so unnecessary because we were going to do what should have been done and we did do it and every proud today of what we have achieved but it's one of those one of those experiences like to speak about law where social forces are at work and you have to work through it and do the best you can to keep the public fully informed of what the issues were and press on to some solution is right and true that that i think we did earlier you mentioned that people on campuses across the country there were administration believed been taken over their work burnings there were some serious issues happening that that never made his way to chapel hill was or a point in time that you thought we're close to this

but i'll put it this way at chapel hill there's a tradition of student government that israel is not a plaything they publish a daily paper they have a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars and they legislate in adverse possible the leadership of the student body understood that you have freedom but when you have freedom the southern ocean get notes responsibility it goes along with being free people that was the force it was at work i get these dunes enormous credit for stability and keeping the state now there were plenty of tensions all around us and the bills were sixteen and eighteen hour days let's stay at the ft rihanna laws and that's why we were able to go ahead and move forward and i think now today as you look back upon the girl you wish you could have accelerated unsettled long before what's the biggest challenge that you see facing the unc system today it's how to get to a larger numbers of

young people and keep the economic force not being the controlling circumstance to answer a question like that david means' in and around the answer that i gave you that the university's free but it has first rate faculty people and they're compensated for the work that the university is a vital powerful force on i mean or sixteen of these camps as they are and can become the real mechanism to shape the future of north carolina that train people qualified to do that kind of thing it's keeping that flow keeping that sense of parks keeping that sense of mission that i think is so important we referenced a couple of times north carolina people on unc tv been hosting their show thirty seven years ago and eighteen hundred programmes that so people know you as the face of the program but they don't necessarily know what a pivotal role you played in the creation of public television for the stay where it

you talk about bailing learned he's the table in the early days of public television that's the way it was barely come up about an old buick automobile and he had a little display case and he literally wrote the state and raised a million dollars or put up a television amir job ryan conceded and gave it gay the universe to the right to get a total fool bobby bowden think it had much viability david it they really didn't think it was something the state ordered didn't see the connection between that and what it does in the public schools for example this morning although it had a at night is of course this was pre cable i mean there were two or three channels on and that was it and it was live and it would blacken why and if you think about consuming material warned that that monster does

that eat up everything you could do unthinkable morning and it was it was at heart a run that we developed ddt people like dr bonnie borden gave a sick one of culture's own understanding the bible noah's engines schoolteacher power but education fragment met in the philosophy of of being alive and that on a known unknown and now we have a stable of bright young man who were there you're at like a catcher for this because he'd he was if he was a man who really pushed public television with billy carmichael when he brought in the old one's young man i'm from hollywood and from one layer was wgbh is program chief for another one at the station in new orleans it was approaching grenell and he really was racing television producer you told me once that you sort of warned on the fly you said i'll started talking to people and just wanted to know about their lives if you learn to listen you can do it at that that's a

teammate david does the most important thing that in a program like this one most people about nolan north carolina but i've never met one didn't have the goods store question is unlocking that story living in tow and that means getting getting into an atmosphere the feeling of really sharing with you mr parker says band to collect a series of interviews so that when they're all put in the university's lab or resources if fifty years unless somebody want to know what the government said about smart started it to their ears and the thing about hard about television is it that differentiates it from this medium is it when you watch a full of face a new watches as me into the ring and the voices sincerity comes across in a way and ears don't communicate and that's what television has such an advantage i think in this kind of communication and he's definitely <unk> tomorrow's

experiences and you chose a better choice conscious decision not to be confrontational well i don't think that worked say two things about that i think people are sick and tired of confrontational television right now that is you get you know even the names of the program's hardball soul and i think i think the public's attitude is changing get that mime opposition even if you want to learn something from somebody you got to make them do the talking at you because he's a one steps toward definitely sort of the dollar and get out of the way is there one rescuers were for no that's not your favorite question that is there that outstanding moment or interview or surprised that you collected over the past thirty seven years old have been lots of america they see people like dealing with

three wonderful spirit down their own markers out and we were in his seat in the cabin and carrying on an interview regularly like we do also the dispenser and starts singing his song but i was totally unprepared for that approach again other towns that you know it it's the humanity of the people that you're pulling out that this was a genuine spontaneous pure odorous of what he wanted didn't let my job it get him in that mood then you leave many years you in droves for all we're dear friends or a lifetime yes we have started to excuse me when charges in school at chapel hill he was editor the paper then we got to be very good friends and all through his career he you stay in touch with chapel hill and he called me some families they get up pleasing to look up when the massive what you're not drawn its own is there a dull got there around you

will be allowed in the squirrels running around this morning nasa yourself he was reared define himself he loved the place with a passion for what you learned about him as it is best expressed in the way he structured is broken sunday morning you saw there are many facets of being a lawyer in the united states that's a complex it was but that's how genuine he was he died on july fourth that phone call came that morning six thirty am it was his secretary dear lady at work with with him she'd only of his death is a good team the last letter he'd written with comedian maz about is the need to find a place to be buried not being a world facing death at the time and all she said he dictated that the afternoon and only took a sudden

turn to asset to work in your token who was charged as adversarial away at chapel hill at one time of george randi educational foundation called me and said i want to give you a lot to spot the charge to be very much where he is and that ended up long long friendship i know i didn't enjoy it immensely an lp that you obviously still missing added we totaled about time you're wonderful wife earlier you also had the blessing of being a father of dollars and we have three friends just immerse in memorial hospital right now has been full more than two decades she has a wonderful job working in the newborn clinic where do babies a middle daughter marry a graduate in law at duke university and had a very successful career in europe she's now married living in singapore and know that he's

coming home they have had more of a nice visit and our youngest daughter betty bat of cancer five years ago next week and she was such a bright talented young keep your own course we miss her greatly she was there involved in the arts owe you have great on broadway that she graduate school of the arts and was in big time in broadway she was in the two or three productions made their way to the big stage and get your son along what was he one of the producers of titanic yes he was my try to get you to invest in it and you said no i think it was michael david says maybe it was a still of a successful or not producer of tonight's got the biggest musical on broadway right now and hear the frankie valli program and wait is producing jersey boys set his show and to talk about that we could go and he did guys and dolls revival and all that work with all the french you know from the theater here and

it is you know that's we're breaking one last question of relief your belief in the people of north carolina has never wavered it had told me recently that you thought that the strength of the state is its people i presumed that will be your ma drop as long as you have a breath to provide well i see it so the backbone of what we call our great state david you can trust the people when they're informed the big problem is being sure that they're fully informed than adequately informed i've never doubted what i think the will of the people of the state would be i think it go right now we barely need to develop in north carolina a mechanism of presenting to the people what these issues at harvard are so pervasive of our future we let the

progress more diverse session mostly to which in my view was a big mistake and i hope and trust that the universe you will in his own way and i think president boulders as kind of leader began to assert itself again by identifying issues of the people must know about water clean air transportation delivery of health care these are things that everything to do with what kind of north carolina we weigh on friday thanks so much for coming in today thank you dave is always a joy to be with you bill friday is president emeritus of the university of north carolina and host of the unc tv program north carolina people that's the state of things for today we do thank you for listening if you have a comment about our show or want to hear archived editions of best programs go to our website to the state of things that authority to the state of things is produced by lindsay thomas and katy barron david m iowa's our summer intern robin copley as a technical director the managing editor is dave dewitt susan davis is the

senior producer this is north carolina public radio the broadcast service at the university of north carolina at chapel hill i'm david gregory it's b that's right no

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