James Holshouser
| James Eubert Holshouser, Jr. | |
 | |
68th Governor of North Carolina
| |
| In office January 5, 1973 – January 8, 1977 | |
| Preceded by | Robert Walter "Bob" Scott |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | James Baxter Hunt, Jr. |
Chairman of the
North Carolina Republican Party | |
| In office 1966–1972 | |
| Preceded by | James Carson "Jim" Gardner |
| Succeeded by | Frank Rouse |
North Carolina State Representative
for the 44th district | |
| In office 1969–1973 | |
| Preceded by | Mack Stewart Isaac |
| Succeeded by | Ernest Bryan Messer Liston Bryan Ramsey |
State Representative
for Watauga County | |
| In office 1963–1967 | |
| Preceded by | Murray Harris Coffey |
| Succeeded by | District abolished |
| Born | October 8, 1934 Boone, Watauga County, North Carolina |
| Died | June 17, 2013 (aged 78) Pinehurst, Moore County, North Carolina |
| Resting place | Cremation |
| Spouse(s) | Patricia Ann Hollingsworth Holshouser (married 1961-2006, her death) |
| Children | Lost infant son in 1968 Ginny H. Mills |
| Alma mater | Davidson College (Bachelor of Science) University of North Carolina School of Law (Bachelor of Laws) |
James Eubert Holshouser, Jr., known as Jim Holshouser (October 8, 1934 – June 17, 2013), was the first Republican since 1896 to serve as Governor of his native North Carolina. As the 68th governor, he held office for a single term from 1973 to 1977, sandwiched in between the Democrats Robert Walter "Bob" Scott (1939-2019) and James Baxter Hunt, Jr. (born 1937), the latter of whom was lieutenant governor in the Holshouser administration and subsequently served four nonconsecutive terms as governor.
Background
Holshouser was born in Boone in Wautagua County in western North Carolina to James E. "Peck" Holshouser, Sr. (1900-1981), and the former Dessie Virginia Dayvault (1911-1995), a nurse.[1]The senior Holshouser was an active Republican who served on the state Board of Elections and as a United States Attorney under U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. His mother was originally a Democrat but later changed her affiliation to Independent and then Republican upon her son's election as governor.
Holshouser attended the private Presbyterian-affiliated Davidson College in Davidson in Mecklenburg County, also the alma mater of later Republican Governor James Grubbs Martin. Holshouser studied history and considered becoming a sports writer while working on the staff of The Charlotte Observer in Charlotte. Instead, he became an attorney like his father and graduated in 1960 from the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill.[1] In 1961, he wed the former Patricia Ann Hollingsworth (1939-2006) of Asheville, North Carolina.[2]
Political career
In 1962, Holshouser was elected to represent Watauga County in the state legislature and rose to the position of Republican Minority Leader. He was a legislator for eight years prior to his governorship.[3] The then heavily Democratic North Carolina had disfranchisement African Americans in 1899. During the 1960s and 1970s, however, a number of Southern whites began shifting their support to the Republicans, and Richard Nixon carried the state in 1968 and 1972 but not in 1960 when John F. Kennedy prevailed.
From 1966 to 1972, Holshouser was the chairman of the state Republican Party,[3] a position formerly briefly held by later Lieutenant Governor James Carson "Jim" Gardner, the 1968 Republican gubernatorial nominee, also ran in the 1972 primary against Holshouser but finished the runoff fewer than two thousand votes behind Holshouser.
In 1972, Holshouser ran for governor despite having kidney disease.[2] After winning the party nomination over Jim Gardner, Holshouser was narrowly elected over the Democrat Hargrove "Skipper" Bowles, Jr.[3] (1919-1986), of Greensboro in the general election with 51 percent of the vote. He likely benefited from Nixon's coattails and the election of conservative five-term United States Senator Jesse Helms of Raleigh, who received 54 percent of the vote in 1972 and in 1976 spearheaded Ronald Reagan's challenge to unelected U.S. President Gerald Ford. Electorally, he performed well among women and younger voters, while also appealing more to blacks than the more conservative Republicans such as Gardner and Helms.
At thirty-eight, he was North Carolina's youngest governor of the 20th century.[3] He dismissed many state employees to provide positions for Republicans who had been unable to work in the state administration under Democratic governors.[4] He established the Governor’s Efficiency Study Commission, which proposed some seven hundred ways to reduce the cost of state government, including centralized printing, five-year license plates, and compact cars for state agencies. Holshouser later estimated that the changes saved the state government $80 million annually[5] (more than 361 million in 2021 dollars).
Holshouser had no gubernatorial veto, and Democrat legislators worked to weaken the powers of the office. He often consulted with Democratic Lieutenant Governor Jim Hunt on budget matters and Hunt's initiative to expand kindergarten. In time, Holshouser and Hunt became close friends.[3] He also had support among legislators with whom he had previously served.[6] Hunt's kindergarten plan was passed by the legislature and fully implemented in 1977, when Hunt succeeded Holshouser as governor.[7] His budget also expanded funding for state parks.[3] Holshouser and Hunt encouraged the state legislature to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, but the amendment failed in North Carolina and was three states short of implementation.[8] Like Republican Governor Winthrop Rockefeller of Arkansas, Holshouser was an opponent of the death penalty regardless of how heinous the crimes committed might be.[9]
As governor, Holshouser worked to increase funding for state parks. He worked to consolidate the University of North Carolina system under a board of governors,[3] capital improvements funding for community colleges, they statewide kindergarten system, and establishment of health clinics in rural areas. Because North Carolina governors were then ineligible to succeed themselves, Holshouser could not run for reelection in 1976. The party nominated in a runoff former state Senator David Flaherty (1928-2020) of Cary in Wake County, who defeated fellow Republican Coy Clarence Privette (1933-2015), a Baptist pastor from Cabarrus County and later a state representative, 49.8 to 32.4 percent. Then Flaherty received barely a third of the vote in the race against Hunt. Ford by contrast polled 44 percent in North Carolina in the losing race to Democrat Jimmy Carter of Georgia.
While he was governor, Holshouser from 1974 to 1975 was the chairman of the Southern Regional Education Board He was also the chairman of the Southern Growth Policies Board.[3]
A Moderate Republican, Holshouser was firmly in the Ford camp. When Reagan won the North Carolina presidential preference primary of 1976, the Republican state convention refused to appoint Holshouser as a delegate to the Republican National Convention held in the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri.[3] The same had also happened in Texas because U.S. Senator John Tower, a former conservative, backed Ford over Reagan. During his tenure the North Carolina Executive Mansion was renovated while the Holshousers moved into a private residence for nine months.[2]
Later years
Upon leaving the governorship, Holshouser returned to his law practice and split his time between offices in Boone and Southern Pines in Moore County, where the Holshousers moved in 1978. He was elected to the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina, and later served as a member emeritus. He served on the boards of St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg and his alma mater, Davidson College.[3]
After years of kidney problems, Holshouser was treated with dialysis and then had a kidney transplant.[2] He died at the age of seventy-eight, seven years after the passing of Mrs. Holshouser.[10]
A residence hall at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is named in his honor. A stretch of U.S. 321 between Boone and Blowing Rock is named for Holshouser. Professorships were endowed in his honor at both Appalachian State University in Boone and the flagship University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[11]
Holshouser was cremated,[1] with remains placed at the Brownson Memorial Presbyterian Church in Southern Pines.[3] His parents are interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Blowing Rock. Mrs. Holshouser's burial place is unknown.[1] The Holshousers' daughter is Ginny H. Mills of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 James Eubert “Jim” Holshouser Jr. (1934-2013) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed October 7, 2021.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Rob Christensen, "Former first lady Patricia Holshouser, 67, dies, Raleigh News & Observer, December 8, 2006.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 Governor of the State of North Carolina - James Eubert Holshouser, Jr. (carolana.com), accessdate=October 7, 2021}}
- ↑ Rob Christensen (2010), The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics: The Personalities, Elections, and Events That Shaped Modern North Carolina (second ed.) (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010), p. 229.
- ↑ Michael Hill, "James Eubert Holshouser Jr.," NCPedia Government & Heritage Library, August 27, 2001.
- ↑ Wayne Grimsley, James B. Hunt: A North Carolina Progressive, McFarland (2003), pp. 89-90.
- ↑ Grimsley, p. 91.
- ↑ Grimsley, p. 91.
- ↑ Ex-North Carolina Gov. Jim Holshouser dies at 78 – Twin Cities, accessed October 7, 2021.
- ↑ WRAL.com Former Gov. Jim Holshouser dies. WRAL-TV (Raleigh) (June 17, 2013). Retrieved on October 7, 2021.
- ↑ Governor McCrory Offers Condolences to Family of Governor Holshouser". North Carolina Governors' Office: Pat McCrory (June 17, 2013). Retrieved on October 7, 2021.
