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'Sherlock Holmes' receives faculty service award

He calls himself, simply, a great collector. Just now he is collecting pictures of the Carolina Parakeet, which might seem odd for one of North Carolina's premier historians, but the Carolina Parakeet became extinct just a few years after William Powell was born. "I've often thought," he said, "how interesting it would have been if I could have seen one."

It is that enthusiasm, and the remarkable campus and state knowledge it has nurtured and created, that earned Bill Powell the General Alumni Association's (GAA) 2002 Faculty Service Award. The award, given since 1990, honors faculty members who have shown outstanding service to the University or the GAA. Past winners have included Doris Betts, Dick Richardson, Rollie Tillman, Chuck Stone, Ruel Tyson and Bill Leuchtenburg.

Powell, who earned his undergraduate degree from Carolina in 1940 and added master's degrees in history and library science in 1947, long ago dedicated his life's work to showing others what came before them -- the things they otherwise could not have seen. His curiosity is not for dates and lists but for what was beneath the surface -- the people who made decisions and the events that steered them, the weaving of a social history.

And it is contagious. The study of North Carolina history is a rite of passage for generations of students at this University because of Powell's guidance. His influence as a teacher is found in staff directories from Thomas Wolfe's home to Fort Macon -- almost all the various halls of history across the state.

"In a world engulfed in globalization, Bill always has reminded us that our roots are local, " said a former student and Catawba College history and classics professor Gary Freeze.

Powell is the author of several key tomes collecting Tar Heel state history for citizens and students to consult whenever a question comes up.

After someone asked Powell about the location of a particular township, he realized that there was no guide to N.C. places. Thus, The North Carolina Gazetteer was born.

A history professor at Carolina from 1973 to 1986, and the curator of the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Library for 15 years, Powell has done some of his most important publishing since retiring. The six-volume Dictionary of North Carolina Biography; his state history, North Carolina Through Four Centuries; and perhaps the book for which most people know him, The First State University -- his pictorial history of the University -- are all gems for the student of N.C. memories. His forthcoming Encyclopedia of North Carolina History represents Powell's reaching out to more than 700 people, many of them with no real experience as historians, who just share his passion for digging deep into a subject and putting what they find into words.

H.G. Jones, Powell's successor as curator of the North Carolina Collection, called the encyclopedia his crowning achievement. "He is indefatigable," Jones said. "His greeting to me when I do not see him until late in the day is usually a mischievous grin and an excited `Guess what I found today?' He's the Sherlock Holmes of North Carolina history."

Without question, Powell's writings have earned him a place among the most respected N.C. historians. More than 5,000 students are part of the teacher's legacy -- the people for whom Powell hoped "that some of my enthusiasm for the past might rub off."

The GAA is a self-governed, nonprofit organization serving Carolina and its alumni, students, parents and friends.


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