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NCBIWA Receives Triad Foundation Grant
by Terry Calhoun 

A grant from a foundation established by the family of the late Roy H. Park, an American media giant with ties to North Carolina, will be used to help promote the outreach efforts of the North Carolina Beach, Inlet and Waterway Association, it was announced recently by the Foundation and NCBIWA executive director Harry Simmons.

The Triad Foundation, a charitable trust managed from Ithaca, N.Y., awarded $10,000 to NCBIWA to provide general support during 2007, “specifically to help broaden the organization’s educational capability, especially with statewide media outlets,” according to the citation accompanying the grant.

The Triad Foundation is one of several endowments from the estate of Mr. Park, who rose from a Dobson (NC) tenant farm family to eventually found Park Communications, Inc., a media consortium which controlled 21 radio stations, 7 television stations (including WNCT in Greenville, NC) and 144 print publications. Park acquired dozens of mostly medium-sized newspapers in 24 states and the company’s market reach was estimated at one quarter of all American households.

An NC State University graduate, Park settled in Ithaca in the 1940s at a time when his focus was on public relations. A high point in that initial career came after he paired the Grange League Federation with noted food critic Duncan Hines to found Park-Hines Foods, the company that introduced Duncan Hines Cake Mix. When that fledgling company was acquired by Procter and Gamble in 1956 Park moved on to P&G as a senior executive.

By the time of his death in 1993 Park was listed by Forbes Magazine as the 40th richest man in the United States and had been honored with the North Carolina Award, the state’s highest civilian honor. The Triad Foundation, which is chaired by Roy H. Park, Jr., principally funds graduate fellowships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communications and the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, in addition to marine and tropical ecology and medical and scientific research.

“NCBIWA is grateful to The Triad Foundation for its generous support and will commit the award to the goal of communicating to all the people of North Carolina the story of our coast’s immense social and economic value,” said NCBIWA board chairman Rick Catlin.

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