[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 127 (Thursday, September 10, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2239]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        NORTH CAROLINA REMEMBERS SENATOR RUSSELL G. WALKER, SR.

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                          HON. DAVID E. PRICE

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 10, 2009

  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, on September 2 North 
Carolina lost one of its most consequential and compassionate political 
leaders, former Senator Russell G. Walker, Sr., of Asheboro. Recent 
days have been filled with tributes from those of us who treasured the 
opportunity to know and work with Russell--former Governor Jim Hunt 
described him as ``one of the most caring people I have ever met in 
politics.'' But untold thousands who never met Russell are also in his 
debt, by virtue of his work on mental health, maternal and child 
health, water quality, and other policy challenges during his ten terms 
in the North Carolina Senate.
  Russell was born in 1918 in the community of Conetoe, in Edgecombe 
County, North Carolina, and his family soon moved to High Point. During 
the Depression years Russell worked after school to help keep bread on 
the table and got into the grocery business, moving to Asheboro to 
manage a store at age 19. He married Ruth Brunt in 1941--the beginning 
of a 68-year marriage that warmed the hearts of all who knew them and 
of a family that includes three children, Russell, Jr., Steve, and 
Susan, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
  Russell enlisted in the Army Air Corps after Pearl Harbor and spent 
much of World War II ``flying the hump,'' hauling troops, bombs, and 
fuel from India to China over the treacherous Himalayas. He founded his 
own supermarket chain, Food Line, after the war, and became a mainstay 
of civic, religious, and political life in Randolph County. Serving 
first on the Asheboro City Council, he gained election to the North 
Carolina Senate in 1974. While he is rightly known statewide for his 
pioneering and persistent work in health and human services, citizens 
of Asheboro are well aware of many more local and tangible results of 
his service: the North Carolina Zoo (the strategic location of which, 
in Asheboro, was no accident!), highway U.S. 64, and the Asheboro 
airport.
  I came to know Russell well in 1979-80, when I took a leave of 
absence from Duke University to serve as executive director of the 
North Carolina Democratic Party during his time as party chairman. We 
had a wonderful time riding North Carolina's roads together, visiting 
far-flung towns and counties and along the way talking for hours about 
every imaginable topic. I learned a great deal, especially, about 
Russell's wartime experience and the 1972 Nick Galifianakis Senate 
campaign, which Russell had managed and which was still fresh on his 
mind.
  Above all, however, Russell and I became good friends, and I came to 
understand what a remarkable man he was--compassionate, fair and 
decent, firm in his own convictions but open to what he might learn 
from others, quick to spot another person's promise and to offer 
encouragement. These are qualities I treasured in my own father and 
which I have seen in few people to the extent they were exemplified by 
Russell Walker.
  I could say more, Madam Speaker, about my indebtedness to Russell 
Walker as a mentor and for the encouragement and help he offered in 
1986 and beyond as I began my own congressional career. But the most 
important and enduring point is the one about character, and I can 
underscore it with a story told by Lloyd Hamlet, a long-time friend of 
Russell's and mine, to the Asheboro Courier-Tribune last week.
  A youngster was caught stealing food at one of Russell's stores. The 
police were called, but Russell intervened and had a talk with the boy. 
He said that there was no food at his house; his dad was not in the 
home and his mother was often away. Russell went with the boy to his 
home, learned more about his circumstances, and eventually left the 
house filled with food from his store.
  Anyone who knew Russell Walker well would recognize him from that 
story. The story would be neither remembered nor recounted if Russell 
had reacted in the expected way. But we recall it fondly because of 
what it says about the man we knew and about the enduring power of love 
and kindness--a reversal, we may hope, of Shakespeare's famous dictum: 
it is the good that we do that endures. Certainly there is much good 
that Russell Walker did that lives after him--individual acts of 
kindness and encouragement, and social policies made more effective and 
humane by his years of legislative leadership. We are grateful for his 
life and the way he lived it and continue to be inspired by his 
example.

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