Throughout his career, expanding educational opportunities for others was his highest nonbusiness priority. He spent an enormous amount of time to achieve that goal. As the chancellor of NC State University said in 1978, my father “emerged as one of the nation’s most articulate spokesman on the important role of private support for public higher education.” And William C. Friday, former president of The University of North Carolina, hailed his contribution: “Among North Carolina’s illustrious achievers during this half century, none stands taller than Roy Park. Always of good humor and with a generous heart, he moved among his peers sharing of himself gladly in the service of others.”
Over the years, Pops served in many capacities at NC State, including president and chairman of the board of the University Alumni Association, chairman of the public relations committee of the Development Council, and chairman of the Board of Trustees in 1977.
He also became chairman of the NC State University Development Council. His efforts helped propel the university into the top ten universities in the nation in terms of corporate support. “For seven years,” said Rudy Pate, who was State’s vice chancellor at the time, “he headed our development council. He has one of the greatest organizational minds I’ve ever encountered. Roy had been a generous and major contributor. He raised literally millions of dollars.”
In recognition of his interest, he was honored in 1970 by the NC State Alumni Association with its Meritorious Service Award. In 1975, he received one of one NCSU’s first three Watagua Medals, the university’s highest nonacademic award.
In 1985 he was inducted into The Order of Walter Hines Page at State, and the same year, he became a Distinguished Alumni Fellow of the NC State University Center for Economic and Business Studies. In early 1992, Pops received the Centennial Award from his alma mater.
Pops’s association with Cornell University went back to the beginning of his third career with Hines-Park Foods. He engaged Cornell to research American eating habits before launching his food enterprises, and after his food research in the Cornell labs, Pops made his link with Duncan Hines. Through Cornell he was named a member of the Advisory Council of the New York State College of Agriculture and the Agricultural Experiment Stations at Cornell University, serving from 1965 to 1969.
In November 1976 my father spoke to Cornell MBA students through the Cornell Executive Forum, a program launched by what is now the Samuel C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. He was one of 12 top executive speakers including the chairmen of P&G, Citicorp, Coopers and Lybrand and Morgan Guaranty and the presidents of Chase Bank and Eastern Airlines. In his introduction, Dean H. Justin Davidson said an entrepreneur is a special person who has opted for the excitement and risks of independent businessman rather than the comforts and security of corporate life. He said Roy H. Park is such a man and called him “a uniquely American phenomenon.”
In July 1977, Pops became a member of the Advisory Council of the Johnson Graduate School of Management and in one of his talks, he told its graduating class, “Finally, as night comes after day, you’ll have your ups and downs. Don’t gloat over your success, for it may be only a hair’s breadth from a failure. And if you fail don’t whimper or give up. Pick up your shield and your sword and go into battle with renewed purpose.”
As Johnnie mentioned earlier, in 1983 Pops was instrumental in creating the Lewis H. Durland Memorial Lecture Series which continues to this day. He and a group of supporters endowed the Durland Memorial Fund in honor of the former treasurer of Cornell University. Before Mr. Durland’s retirement in 1973, he spent twenty-five years directing Cornell’s financial life. While he was treasurer, Cornell’s investment portfolio grew from $45.2 million to $322 million.
In 1971, my father began a long-term relationship with The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson announced the establishment of the Roy H. Park Scholarship and said the first award for the 1971–72 school year would support major expenses of one student a year in the Department of Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures in the University at Chapel Hill.
In 1980, Pops became a trustee of The University of North Carolina’s School of Journalism Foundation. In 1982, he was inducted into the NC Broadcasters Hall of Fame. In 1989, he became a member of the Board of Visitors of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC. And on April 8, 1990, he was inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Pops once said, “I love North Carolina. I’ve known all the governors since O. Max Gardner [from 1929-1933] and I can’t remember one that was anything but a fine gentleman.”
Richard Cole, the former dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, worked with my father for over fifteen years and was the featured speaker at his last Park Communications managers’ meeting, in 1992. He called my father “a giant in mass communications, and a self-made man,” and Pops was one of his strongest supporters. Our family goes back three generations with Richard, and in April 2005 I spoke at his retirement dinner.
I pointed out that if my father were still alive, “he would be here with bells and whistles, and I’m sure he is looking down on us now.”
In commending Richard and lamenting the loss of his leadership, I shared with him one of my father’s favorite quotes, the words of the late Peter Kiewit, entrepreneur and former owner of the Omaha World-Herald (now the largest employee-employerowned newspaper in the United States), because they so perfectly fit Dean Cole: I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon if I can. I seek opportunity, not security. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build; to fail and to succeed. I prefer the challenges of life to the calm state of Utopia. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud, unafraid, to think and act for myself, to enjoy the benefit of my creation, and to face the world boldly and say, “This I have done.”
Cole put the UNC Journalism School on top and I concluded, “This you have done, Richard Cole, and for this you should be proud. I know all of us are proud of you.”
Because of his devotion to education, it was a given that my father would be pursued by other colleges and universities, including another in his hometown, Ithaca College. Pops became a member of the Ithaca College Board of Trustees in 1973 and was elected chairman in 1982.
Johnnie Babcock recalls why he decided to immerse himself in the nitty-gritty of education funding and management at Ithaca College, a highly regarded liberal arts school: “The local college turned out exceptionally qualified musicians, theatrical professionals, athletic coaches and health-care practitioners. It began to offer courses leading to an undergraduate business management degree after Roy joined them as a trustee.
“He was particularly interested in the college’s communications programs in broadcasting and journalism. When he advanced to chairman of the board, he planned and guided the construction of a brand-new building for those specialties and saw to it that they were equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. He helped raise funds and New York State money to pay for the school. The handsome new communications facility was prominently identified with Roy H. Park and Park Broadcasting. Roy did not give the building, to the disappointment and consternation of many on campus and in the community. He did contribute significant cash but only a small portion of the total cost. He was proud of the recognition but did not want the honor to look like a payoff. His estate later donated larger sums, of such scale as to have justified naming the school after him.
“James J. Whalen, president of Ithaca College, felt that Roy’s enduring commitment to the school came directly from his appreciation for what the school was trying to accomplish. ‘I think Roy, to some degree, looked at this and said there are some people up there trying. I think Roy has an appreciation for people that struggle, and I think he helps the struggler. And he has a big impact on this school.’” Johnnie said, “Park’s involvement as a trustee and chairman of the board at Ithaca College involved working with many Ithaca-based businessmen, many of whom were IC graduates, few of whom had accumulated anywhere near Park’s resources. The relatively new and young president of the college had distinguished academic credentials but little hands-on experience with the general management and affairs of an institution of higher learning. He was an attentive student of Chairman Park, who treated him to additional lessons in financial management by making him a director of his local bank, and then chairman of the bank’s advisory body, a position the educator held until the bank was relegated to a branch by its final owner. The local advisors were given a commemorative clock and disbanded.
“The president of the college pursued the stewardship of his college much as I did Park’s communications businesses. His authority was as absolute as Park wished it to be, and he had almost daily guidance, as did I. If there was any doubt of his loyalty to Park, it was obviated by extra cash Park paid him in addition to a salary that rose in concert with the success of the school. The docile board ratified quickly Park’s agenda, except in real estate and facility management, where some members had definite ideas of their own and plenty of expertise,” Johnnie said.
My father was also a member of the Friends of Ithaca College and received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the College’s 1985 Commencement when he delivered the main address. His outlook on life was exemplified by the conclusion of his speech to the graduating seniors. He said, “Finally, and I think most important, be honest in your heart, your soul, and your mind. Integrity will help you move forward, and the lack of it will topple you from the perch of whatever success you may achieve.”
On September 15, 1989, my father was accorded another major honor by Ithaca College. In recognition of his efforts on behalf of Ithaca College and his accomplishments in the field of communications, the Roy H. Park School of Communications and its home, Roy H. Park Hall, were named for him. The three-story Park School of Communications—which houses approximately $2.5 million worth of equipment—was described by its former dean, Thomas W. Bohn, as “one of the finest, if not the finest, and most complete schools of communication in the country.”
In 1991, the Ithaca College Alumni Association presented him with the highest award given by the college, the Meritorious Service Award.
My father’s pride in his close association with both Cornell and Ithaca College became clear to a visitor from NC State. As reported by Rudolph Pate in the NCSU Alumni News in 1971, the North Carolinian accompanied him from his breakfast on a typical day in July 1970 to his office, where my father “worked through a busy morning of correspondence, telephone calls, staff conferences, then attended lunch with his fellow Rotarians to hear a talk by a university professor on Cornell’s plantations.
“After the Rotary Club luncheon,” Pate said, “Roy conferred with his assistant, Jean Ballard, put in a heavy schedule of office work, and headed home. On the way, he made a point of taking time to show me the modern campus of Ithaca College and the sprawling grounds of world-renowned Cornell University.”15 Pops didn’t limit his involvement in education to North Carolina and Ithaca-based centers of higher education. He was a trustee and member of the Board of Associates, Meredith College; and a member of the Board of Trustees of Keuka College, Keuka Park, NY, 1967 to 1972, from which he received a Doctorate of Humane Letters in 1967. In 1981, he was named to the Deans Advisory Council of the Newhouse School of Communication at Syracuse University. In 1985, Wake Forest University awarded him an honorary doctorate of laws degree.
In 1990, Shenandoah College and Conservatory in Winchester, VA, calling him a man who could write a book on entrepreneurial spirit, awarded him the Free Enterprise medal and named him Entrepreneur of the Year. In his remarks, my father paid tribute to his longtime friend, former U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr.
“Senator Byrd, as a fellow newspaper publisher, a fellow farmer, he grows apples, and I grow oranges, and a gentleman of exceptional intelligence and ability, has long been among my most valued advisors,” he said.
At age eighty, after sixty years in four business careers culminating in a media empire, Pops never forgot his farm roots. It is said, “Take a country boy to the city and they never go back,” and my father never went back to the farm. Although he didn’t like farm life, the farm was in him, and his interest in farming continued throughout his life. Farming and food products gave him his start in public relations, promotion, advertising, franchising, citrus grove and timberland ownership, real estate and investments. Even the majority of his broadcast stations and newspapers were located in farming areas, from North Dakota to North Carolina.
He also never forgot the value of a good education, which was what gave him his start in life, or his home state of North Carolina. His connections to North Carolina State, Cornell and Ithaca College were even more extensive than can be covered in the pages of this book and can be found in Appendix D, Deeper Connections to Education. Johnnie Babcock refers to him as the teacher of teachers.