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INDUCTEES FOR
2008
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2004-2007 Inductees' Biographies
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Wendell Edwards | Carol Dobyns Fair
| Carter C. Lassiter |
Richard D. Messinger |
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R. V.
Moss | Marion R. Poole |
R. Y. Sharpe |
Ronald J. Tober |
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 WENDELL
EDWARDS, of Potecasi, NC, served as executive
director of the Choanoke Public Transportation Authority in Rich
Square from 1983 to 2007. Under his direction, the Choanoke Public
Transportation Authority became a charter member of the North
Carolina Public Transportation Association (NCPTA). He served five
terms on the board of directors from 1983 until 1990, and as
president from 1988 to 1990.
He is active in many community and civic organizations.
He is a charter member the Northampton Chamber of Commerce, the
Northampton County Museum Board of Directors, the Northampton County
Historic Commission, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity and the Northampton
County Rotary Club.
He has participated in many local and state
professional organizations, including the National Rural Transit
Assistance Program (RTAP) Training Group, the Legislative
Transportation Study Commission in 1992, is a member of the Peanut
Belt Rural Planning Organization (RPO), the Bertie County
Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), and the Hertford and
Bertie Counties’ Interagency Councils.
His career awards include the Governor’s Public
Transportation Award, the Federal Transit Administration’s
Outstanding Service Award, NCPTA Outstanding Service Award, NC
Outstanding Leadership Award, NCDOT Extra Mile Award and the Order
of the Long Leaf Pine.
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 CAROL
DOBYNS FAIR is in her 46th year as an airline
flight attendant; first with Piedmont Airlines and now with US
Airways. She was born and raised in East Tennessee and is the widow
of Kenneth Dean Fair.
Piedmont Airlines hired her in Winston-Salem in 1963 at age 19, one
year after the airline allowed woman flight attendants. She has
flown with most of the original twelve Piedmont pilots who were
hired in 1948.
In 1987 she was the Senior Flight Attendant on
Piedmont’s inaugural flight from Charlotte to London. For the past
20 years she has been based in Charlotte and routinely works
international flights to London and Frankfort with US Airways.
She has a strong interest in the restoration of
Piedmont’s flagship aircraft, the DC-3 in which she flew during the
1960s. She serves as a goodwill ambassador for Piedmont Airlines and
is actively involved with speeches about aviation and the Piedmont
story to senior citizens and students in continuing education
programs; thereby preserving the history and the heritage of
Piedmont Airlines.
Her merits and awards include the Bronze Award from
British Airways and Piedmont’s perfect attendance award in 1981. She
is an associate member of Piedmont Silver Eagles and a member of
Golden Wing.
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 CARTER
C. LASSITER successfully
led the growth of High Point-based City Transfer and Storage, which
was started by his father I. M. Lassiter in 1908 with a wagon and a
team of mules and horses. Centered near the railroad tracks in High
Point, the company hauled freight that ranged from railroad
passengers’ luggage to dirt. The business continued to grow, always
emphasizing customer service. The company was later modernized by
exchanging the horse-drawn wagon for a truck, which arrived by rail.
It was High Point’s first truck.
Working with his father, Carter and his brother William
“Mac” Lassiter expanded the company into new directions. By the
1950s, their service went from local moving to long-distance
relocations. In 1961, the company, now under Carter’s sole control,
moved to its present location on Redding Drive in High Point.
Services were expanded to include commercial storage, corporate
relocation and crane work. Carter’s wife Doris served as corporate
secretary. Their four sons began learning the business as
youngsters, cleaning and sweeping warehouse floors.
In 1988, City Transfer and Storage became one of the
agents that own Atlas Van Lines. In 1994, they expanded to
Winston-Salem. Today, three of Carter’s sons comprise the executive
management team; and they continue to expand the family business
that has been known for excellence in customer service for 100
years.
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 RICHARD
D. MESSINGER, as chairman of Salisbury’s Power
Curbers, Inc., led the company through its formative years and
developed it into a world leader. Formed in 1952 to manufacture
extruded curb-building machinery, Power Curbers holds the world’s
first patent on curbs made by machine. Its current model, the Power
Curber 5700 Series, is the largest selling curb and gutter machine
in the world. Power Curbers provided equipment that was used in the
construction of the 32-mile Channel Rail Tunnel between England and
France.
From 1959 until 1980, he served as president. During
that period, Power Curbers evolved from a regional market to a
network of dealers across the United States. Starting in 1962, he
single-handily diversified and developed Power Curbers’ strong
international market. Today, that market represents 30 percent of
the company’s business with sales in 80 countries.
In 1983, he received the U. S. Department of Commerce E
Award for Excellence in Exports, presented by President Ronald
Reagan.
He was very active in civic and community life and
served on many boards. He was chairman of the Rowan County Board of
Commissioners, mayor of Bald Head Island, and president of the
Salisbury Rotary Club.
He was also active in Community Theater in Salisbury
with the Piedmont Players, serving as president and acting in many
productions.
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 R.
V. MOSS grew up in Hudson, NC. From 1951 to 1954
he was an Army paratrooper. In May of 1959 he graduated from North
Carolina State University with a BS in civil engineering and worked
for the City of Raleigh, and later for the City of Durham.
From 1963 to 1993 he was the Director of Transportation
for High Point, N. C. Under his direction, the city took over
transit operations from a private firm, installed a computerized
traffic signal system and began an off-street parking program with
the construction of three parking decks in downtown High Point.
In October of 1963, he met with Herman Hoose (2005
NCTHF Inductee) and four other prominent traffic engineers to become
the founding members of the North Carolina Division of the Southern
Section of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), the
predecessor of the North Carolina Section of ITE (NCSITE). In 1969,
he served as its president. He also served as president of the
Southern Section of ITE, which represents nine southern states.
In 1992, NCSITE created the R. V. Moss Lifetime Service
Award. He was its first recipient. He has received the Southern
Section ITE’s Marble J. Hensley Award and the Herman J. Hoose
Distinguished Service Award. Today the City of High Point is in the
process of naming the Traffic Services Building in his honor.
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 MARION
R. POOLE, a 1982 PhD graduate of North Carolina
State University, has worked with the North Carolina Department of
Transportation in urban and statewide highway and thoroughfare
planning.
He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S.
Army Reserves and served until 1966. From 1961 to 1999, he helped
develop computer modeling technology which aided in county and urban
mapping, helped maintain highway and road inventories, and provided
traffic forecasts for project planning and design.
For nine years he managed NCDOT’s Statewide Planning
Branch, which was responsible for cooperative and coordinated
thoroughfare planning for all of the state’s urbanized areas of over
50,000 people.
From the 1970s to the present, he has been active with
the Transportation Research Board, serving on a number of TRB’s
committees and in committee leadership positions dealing with
transportation and economic development and urban freight
transportation.
From 1979 until 2005, he served on the steering
committee for 13 research projects, which were conducted by TRB,
FHWA, and NCDOT. He has authored and co-authored 20 technical
papers. He is a registered professional engineer and a
professional land surveyor in North Carolina and is a member of the
Institute of Transportation Engineers.
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 R.
Y. SHARPE, a native of Hiddenite, NC, was the
founder of Pilot Freight Carriers, Inc. His intense interest in
transportation started early. At age 13, in 1918, he and his brother
bought a wrecked Maxwell car and rebuilt it with parts from other
vehicles. Later he put together an airplane from mail-ordered
surplus parts from the WWI Flying Jenny. In his late teens, he
designed an airplane engine.
In 1933, he leased his first truck, a canvas-covered
vehicle, to Roadway Express and hauled tire fabric from NC to Akron,
Ohio and returned south with tires. In 1935, he hauled the first
truckload of cigarettes from R. J. Reynolds to New York City.
On December 1, 1941, he founded Pilot Freight Carriers.
The company served much of the eastern United States and Canada, had
over 3,200 employees by 1981, a fleet of 600 tractors, more than
2,000 trailers operating out of 60 terminals. When Pilot was sold
that year, revenues were in excess of $145 million.
In the 1950s, to educate truck drivers, he helped
establish the NC Truck Driving Training School at Johnston County
Community College.
R. Y. and his wife Eileen were supporters of the arts
in Winston-Salem, and founded the Hiddenite Center in Alexander
County. As a trucking industry pioneer he received numerous local,
state and national awards.
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 RONALD
J. TOBER was named Chief Executive Officer of the
Charlotte Area Transit System in November 1999, from which he
retired in December 2007. In that position, he was responsible for
building North Carolina’s first light rail system in recent history
- the Lynx Blue Line - a 15-station, 10-mile first stage of what
will eventually be a metropolitan area-wide system. Lynx is the only
light rail system in the US that runs through a convention center.
He is now the Executive director of the Charlotte
Trolley, Inc., a private non-profit organization that operates
restored vintage trolley cars between Charlotte’s historic South End
and Center City, on tracks shared with the Lynx Blue Line.
His career has taken him to transportation leadership
positions in a number of states: from Cleveland, Ohio; to Boston and
Springfield, Massachusetts; to Miami, Florida; to Seattle,
Washington; and back to Cleveland in 1988.
He is active on numerous transit industry committees,
and is currently the immediate Past Chair of the American Public
Transportation Association’s Board of Directors. In 1997, he
received the Ernest J. Bohn Award for Excellence in Public
Administration. In 1999, he received the Executive of the Year Award
from the Conference of Minority Transit Officials.
With over thirty years in the public transit industry,
he is recognized nationally as one of the top transit managers in
the country. |
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Wendell Edwards | Carol Dobyns Fair
| Carter C. Lassiter |
Richard D. Messinger |
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R. V.
Moss | Marion R. Poole |
R. Y. Sharpe |
Ronald J. Tober |
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