Secrets of State

FINALLY, ROBERT RUARK GAINS HALL OF FAME
Turns out the feature article on Robert Ruark in the October 2008 Metro was well-timed. According to Speed Hallman of the UNC School of Journalism, the North Carolina literary legend will be accepted into the Journalism Hall of Fame in January 2009 and inducted the following April.
The Metro article by Bill Morris noted that Ruark was one of the state’s most famous writers — penning significant books, including Something of Value and Uhuru about the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in the mid-1950s; top-selling novels Poor No More and The Honey Badger; and the endearing The Old Man and the Boy about growing up in Southport, NC, where he developed his love of hunting and fishing. The hard-drinking and outspoken Ruark contributed dozens of magazine articles on outdoor life with occasional forays into bare-knuckled political opinion.
Called the “poor man’s Hemingway” for his pieces on big game hunting and his love of bullfighting, Ruark spent most of his life in Spain where he died at the age of 49. His induction into the Hall of Fame came about from efforts by the Robert Ruark Society, founded by UNC alumnus and Ruark friend Jim Cheatham. Go to www.metronc.com to access the Robert Ruark feature by Bill Morris.
— Bernie Reeves

SAVING “COOL HOUSES” IN THE TRIANGLE

George Smart, editor of the architectural Web site Triangle Modernist Houses, received a Gertrude S. Carraway Award of Merit from Preservation North Carolina at ceremonies in October 2008 for demonstrating an outstanding commitment to promoting historic preservation by cataloguing online and providing tours of modernist homes in the Triangle region. The awards, given since 1974, are named in honor of the late Dr. Gertrude S. Carraway, a New Bern historian and preservationist.
According to Smart, “We have more modernist houses (‘cool houses,’ he calls them) than anywhere else in the US, with the exception of Los Angeles, New Canaan, CT, and Chicago. Because of the School of Design at North Carolina State University, modernist style grew and flourished here from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. It is an artistic tragedy that many of these houses are being torn down.”
Drawing on public records, published reports, interviews and followers of the Web site, Triangle Modernist Homes provides detail on 118 architects with over 2000 photographs of nearly 500 rarely seen homes. Go to www.trianglemodernsithouses.com for more.

INTERACT TO OPEN INNOVATIVE NEW FACILITY
Interact will soon open a new Family Safety and Empowerment Center on Oberlin Road in Raleigh for families affected by domestic violence and rape/sexual assault via the Family Empowerment Model that brings together community service providers to begin addressing multiple, long-term family needs.
Additionally, for the first time, Interact will house nine other community agencies in its headquarters to provide wraparound services in substance abuse, mental health disorders, legal assistance, vocational training and medical care under one roof.
Interact’s Family Safety and Empowerment Center will also house Pass It On 2, the agency’s second upscale thrift store in Wake County selling women’s and children’s clothing. To learn more about Interact’s project, visit www.interactofwake.org.

WINTER IN SCOTLAND
Scotland’s Kinloch Lodge, at the foot of Kinloch Hill on the shoreline of the Isle of Skye — the highland home of Claire and Godfrey Macdonald, is offering winter packages for individuals and groups from December 2008 through March 2009 with rates starting at approximately $199 per person that include three-nights’ accommodation, a gourmet five-course dinner, Scottish breakfast daily, and complimentary lunch or afternoon tea for one day. On Jan. 25 in celebration of poet Robert Burns’ Night, the property will host a traditional haggis feast for guests.
For more information on The Lodge, visit www.kinloch-lodge.co.uk.

MARSHALL SCHOLARS BRIEFED AT BRITISH EMBASSY IN WASHINGTON
To celebrate the winners of the 2008 Marshall Scholarship competition, Dr. Theodore H. Leinbaugh, OBE of UNC-Chapel Hill, arranged speakers for the pre-departure program at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, earlier this fall for the newest Marshall Scholars, hosted by Britain’s Ambassador to the United States, Sir Nigel Sheinwald.
Speakers included William J. Burns, Under Secretary of State; Peter R. Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office; Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior under President Clinton and former governor of Arizona; Ambassador Anthony Quainton, former US Ambassador to Peru, Kuwait, Nicaragua and the Central African Republic and former Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Deputy Inspector General, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, and Director General of the Foreign Service.
Leinbaugh, the creator of the annual September speaker series for the Marshall Scholars, has arranged briefings at the State Department and on Capitol Hill in conjunction with the Embassy gathering since 2001. Leinbaugh serves on the British Ambassador’s Advisory Council, the Marshall Selection Committee based at the British Consulate General’s Office in Atlanta and the Board of Directors of the Association of Marshall Scholars.
Established in 1953, the Marshall Scholarships are an expression of Britain’s gratitude for economic assistance received through the Marshall Plan after World War II and reflect Gen. George C. Marshall’s vision of a close and intimate accord between Britain and the US. Valued at about $40,000 annually, the scholarships cover tuition, books, travel and living expenses for at least two years of graduate study in Britain. Previous winners include Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer; Ray Dolby, inventor of the Dolby sound system; Tom Friedman, foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times; and former Duke University President Nan Keohane. For more information on the Marshall Scholarship, visit www.marshallscholarship.org.