This Just In – The Tar Heels have lost one of their most devoted fans. I got an email recently from Walter McMiller’s wife, Yvette, telling me that Walter had passed away peacefully with his family in attendance. Though not exactly surprising due to his declining health, it was a shock, nonetheless. He was 72.
Walter and I worked together at the Durham Housing Authority. He was our Internal Auditor and I was the Communications Director. We were hired at the same time as part of a new management team brought in to stabilize operations and bring the agency forward. I leave it to others to judge our success in that endeavor.
We quickly learned that we had both graduated from UNC. I did so once. He did so twice. We soon also learned that our management team was split pretty evenly in its fandom between Carolina and that local Durham team whose name sometimes escapes me.
Our Monday morning Senior Staff meetings usually started out with some small talk about the weekend’s events and if they included a questionable officiating call at a college sporting event, it was sometimes re-litigated at the table.
When I saw that Tyler Hansborough was going to deliver the convocation speech at Carolina this year, I immediately thought of Walter and what he and I would agree should be the opening statement of his speech … a reference to that infamous Dook game that almost turned our staff meeting into a brawl. Tyler, if you’re listening, open with this:
“It was a punch.”
No explanation needed.
We went through some very difficult times at DHA, but while the work was challenging, it forged a trusting friendship between Walter and me. At one point we stumbled on the coincidence that he and my husband apparently knew each other about 40+ years ago as being among a bunch of tennis buddies who met up on the weekends at the tennis courts near the School of Government.
The location is memorable as it’s accessible by walking down a LOT of steps. When you play, you usually have to reserve enough energy to climb back up to get to your car. Walter remembered Rick, though … the guy who came on his motorcycle, allowing him to ride down and back from the courts. We had a good laugh about that realization.
Walter loved to laugh. He loved his family, his Tar Heels and WCHL, where he was a devoted listener. He took his fandom very seriously, knew all about every player on the basketball squads over the years and I have no doubt there was a massive amount of armchair coaching going on at his house. I hope he didn’t throw stuff at the TV.
Central to Walter’s work during the time we were at DHA was Integrity and the protection of the taxpayers. He had worked as an auditor for the State of North Carolina in a very similar role and at DHA he held the line and dug in deep when it was necessary to ensure that the agency kept on the straight and narrow. He served well and faithfully, as we should all aspire to do. Sail on, Walter.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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