Michael Marsicano, President and CEO of The Foundation for the Carolinas, one of the largest philanthropic community foundations in the country in terms of assets
Clemmie Spangler, businessman, former president of the 16-campus University of North Carolina system from 1986 to 1997; was No. 117 on Forbes' list of 400 richest Americans
William Emerson (1923–2009), journalist; covered the civil rights era as Newsweek's first bureau chief assigned to cover the Southern United States; later editor in chief of The Saturday Evening Post[19]