Pat McCrory will host a fundraiser in Raleigh Wednesday.

The Republican gubernatorial candidate will hold a "business casual" event at the law offices of former Raleigh City Councilman Kieran Shanahan from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

The fundraiser is being hosted by Shanahan and his wife, Tina; former Councilman Tommy Craven and his wife, Nancy, and Jamie and Matt Martin. 

Other hosts include Councilman Philip Isley, developer Gregg Sandreuter, Republican donor Art Pope, attorney Tom Ellis and UNC-Chapel Hill law professor Arch Allen, according to a copy of an invitation received by Dome.

Tickets to the event range from $30 for a guest to $1,000 for a host.

I. Beverly Lake Jr. received the Jesse Helms Award for Courage.

At the President's Day Dinner tonight, the former chief justice of the state Supreme Court was given the second award by the Wake County Republican Party. (The first went to Helms.)

Presenters noted Lake's decision to become a Republican, his unsuccessful run for governor and his work on the N.C. Actual Innocence Commission as examples of his courage. 

Lake, who was spotted earlier sporting a sticker for gubernatorial candidate and former colleague Bob Orr, said the awards "means more than I can possibly say."

He said that Helms was one of his three "greatest heroes" in politics, along with his father, I. Beverly Lake Sr. and Raleigh consultant Tom Ellis.

"Jesse and Tom and my dad held the banner for us and charted the way through the last half of the 20th century," he said. "Jesse's entire political career defined courage."

Lake also spoke briefly about his time in the state Senate in the late 1970s, fighting social studies textbooks that he said would "teach secular humanism as a religion to our children in the public schools."

"They're trying to make a run again in that direction, but we'll turn it back," he said.

Tom Ellis will be honored next week in Raleigh.

Ellis, a Raleigh attorney who was chief architect of the Republican Party's rise in North Carolina, will receive the Freedom Leadership Award for at a dinner sponsored by Hillsdale College at the N.C. Museum of Art on Wednesday, Oct. 3.

As the chief strategist for former Sen. Jesse Helms and his political organization, the National Congressional Club, Ellis helped rescue the career of Ronald Reagan as well as elevate John East and Lauch Faircloth to the Senate, Rob Christensen reports.

Among the sponsors of the event are former Raleigh Mayor Tom Fetzer; John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation; businessman Bob Luddy and philanthropist Assad Meymandi.

Larry P. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, will speak.