Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 20, 1995 TAG: 9505230024
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHAPEL HILL, N.C. LENGTH: Short
``My thought was how nice it would have been for my father to be here,'' said Hooker, a UNC graduate.
He will leave his post as president of the University of Massachusetts system to become chancellor of North Carolina's flagship public campus on July 1. His salary will be $200,000 a year.
Hooker, 49, will replace retiring Chancellor Paul Hardin III.
He was elected by the UNC Board of Governors on the same day former Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson died at age 84. Sitterson was chancellor when Hooker was a student activist at the campus.
``I used to watch Carlyle Sitterson ... and used to imagine myself following that career track,'' he said. ``It was the dream of a lifetime.''
The son of a Southwest Virginia coal miner, Hooker said he discovered himself at UNC and followed the lead into academic life, first teaching philosophy and then becoming an administrator.
``My parents were almost driven to see me go to college as a route out of the coal mines,'' he said during an interview.
His mother, Christine Hooker of Southwest Roanoke County, is understandably proud of her son.
"He's my claim to fame," she said. "We did push education. I guess it must have sunk in, since he's accomplished so much."
His father brought him to visit the UNC campus when he was about 6, Hooker said, and he still has the ``feeling of respect, of awe, of magic'' he had then.
by CNB