HAW RIVER — Former Gov. Robert W. Scott, a folksy and plain-spoken member of North Carolina’s most famous political family, died this morning at age 79.
Scott served as the state's chief executive from 1969 to 1973, a time of social unrest arising from racial divisions and the Vietnam War.
Scott was instrumental in unifying the state's university system and helped push through the legislature the first tax on tobacco — then a political sacred cow, Rob Christensen reports.
In later years, Scott served as president of the state’s 58-campus community college system.
"He was a great man," Scott Sutton, his grandson, said this morning. "I look up to him and will miss him dearly."
Update: Scott died peacefully at 3 a.m. at the Hospice Palliative Care Center of Alamance County.
A funeral service will be held at Hawfields Presbyterian Church in Mebane, N.C., on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2009, at 11 a.m.
He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Jessie Rae Scott; daughters Meg Phipps, Mary Scott, Susan Sutton and Jan Scott; and seven grandchildren, as well as his sister, Mary Kerr Lowdermilk.
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