North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Honoring a Long-Ago Friendship
8/18/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
Sometimes, bonds formed in youth may lie dormant for years before they are reactivated, but, as Raleigh’s David Beam can attest, they are never severed, even long after one of the friends has passed away.
That thought stayed with Beam, a 1972 NC State civil engineering graduate, a quarter century after his former college roommate, Wolfpack football standout Billy Clark, died in 1983, leaving behind a wife, Sharon, and two young daughters, Marcia, age 8, and Ashley, age 6.
Beam and Clark, who lived together for one year at NC State’s Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house and were groomsmen in each other’s weddings, had drifted apart since their college days, with Beam establishing a commercial construction business in Raleigh and Clark working in the textile industry in Hickory, N.C. Beam didn’t even know about Clark’s death until a year after the fact.
“I wish we had been closer after school,” Beam said. “But life happens, and you sort of drift apart. We both had families. We didn’t stay as close as I would have liked.”
For years, it bothered Beam that his friend’s memory had faded. Clark, a high school football star who helped Wilson’s Fike High School win three consecutive state championships in the late 1960s, played during a transitional time in NC State football, finishing off his career in 1971 with a 3-8 record during the only year of interim head coach Al Michaels’ tenure. He was a team leader, but did not garner any attention from the voters for the All-Atlantic Coast Conference team.
Beam always respected
Thursday, at a private dinner at Rocky’s Steakhouse in Clark’s hometown of
“All I ask is that whoever receives this scholarship learns a little bit about Billy Clark, and what kind of person he was,” said Beam, who retired in 2001 as the president and CEO of JD Beam Inc., the Raleigh construction firm that remodeled NC State’s Weisiger-Brown Building in the 1980s and built the two Venture buildings on Centennial Campus, among many other projects. “I hope whoever gets this scholarship every year is as good a person and as good a friend as Billy.
“And if he just happens to have the same size, talent and skill of Mario Williams...”
To be honest, it was one of the lightest moments in an evening that was filled with lots of tears, as Beam and his wife joined the Clark family in remembering their late friend, husband, father, brother and son. Both
They were overwhelmed by Beam’s generosity.
“We don’t really know you at all,” said Marcia Adunka, who had never met with Beam as an adult. “But we thank you for sharing your memories and for remembering our father.”
“The drama of life goes on and on,” said Henry Travathan,
It wasn’t exactly easy. Beam and his wife saved up for years to be able to make twin $250,000 contributions to the Wolfpack Club and to
Purcell said the donation is one of the largest naming gifts ever made to the Wolfpack Club in honor of someone other than the donor or a donor’s family member a selfless act that is a testament to Beam’s friendship with Clark.
“When you reach this age [Beam is 58], having friends is the most important thing you can have,” Beam said. “If there is an opportunity to do something for friends and family, then I think that is something you ought to do.”
Beam is spending his retirement volunteering at his church and staying involved in community activities, doing the things he didn’t take time to do during and after college, during the turmoil of the Vietnam War.
“When we were in school, a lot of futures were determined by a [draft] lottery,” Beam said. “We didn’t do all of the things we wanted to do then. So I am taking care of some of those things now.”
And that includes remembering, in perpetuity, his college friend and roommate.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
