Kuralt's "On the Road" segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes"; in 1975, the award was for his work as a U.S. "bicentennial historian"; his work "captured the individuality of the people, the dynamic growth inherent in the area, and ...the rich heritage of this great nation." He shared in a third Peabody awarded to CBS News Sunday Morning. • Charles Kuralt Books

The H.W. Lay & Company merged with The Frito Company in September 1961, creating the largest-selling snack food company in the United States, the Frito-Lay corporation. He died at the age of 73 in 1982. • Herman Lay Books

Leonard married his high school sweetheart Juanita Wilkinson, from Parkdale High and had two sons. Leonard and Wilkinson later divorced, and in 1994, he married Bernadette Robi, the daughter of Paul Robi. In 1997, Leonard was inducted into the International Boxing Hall Of Fame. Ray's older brother, Roger Leonard, was also a professional boxer, as well as an amateur standout. He frequently fought on the undercard of Ray's bouts. • Sugar Ray Leonard Books

Recognized as the player whose aggressive play and winning personality raised golf to national attention, honed his skills on the championship golf team of Wake Forest University.

Palmer was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He learned golf from his father Deacon Palmer, who was head professional and greenkeeper at Latrobe Country Club, allowing young Arnold to accompany his father as he maintained the course. At age seven, Palmer broke 70 at Bent Creek Country Club. As a youngster, Palmer was only allowed on the Latrobe course (it was just nine holes then) in early morning or late afternoon, when the members weren't playing. He attended Wake Forest University, on a golf scholarship • Arnold Palmer Books

Dolley Payne was born on May 20, 1768, the daughter of two Virginians. Her mother, Mary Coles, was a Quaker, but when they married in 1761 her father, John Payne, was not. Three years later he applied and was admitted to the Quaker Monthly Meeting in Hanover County, Virginia, and Dolley Payne was raised in the Quaker faith.

In 1765 the Paynes moved to North Carolina near where Guilford College stands today. Dolley was one of eight children, four boys (Walter, William Temple, Isaac, and John) and four girls (Dolley, Lucy, Anna, and Mary). The family returned to Virginia three years later. As a young girl she grew up in comfort in rural eastern Virginia, deeply attached to her mother's family. • Dolley Payne Madison Books

(born January 16, 1945) is an American country music singer and musician. He was one of country’s most popular and influential artists in the 1970s and 1980s. He became country music’s first blind superstar. He was also one of the most successful country crossover singers of his time, appealing to both country and pop markets. Milsap’s biggest crossover hits include "It Was Almost Like a Song," "Smoky Mountain Rain," "(There's) No Gettin' Over Me," "I Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World," "Any Day Now," and "Stranger in My House," among others. He is credited with 40 number one hits in country music, third to George Strait and Conway Twitty.

Milsap was born in Robbinsville, North Carolina with a congenital defect, leaving him almost completely blind. Soon after his first birthday, he was cast off and given to his grandmother to raise (it is said that his mother considered his blindness a punishment from God due to his wickedness). At age six, he was sent to the Governor Morehead School for the Blind in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he received a quality education and skills that would be beneficial to him for the rest of his life.• Ronnie Milsap Website • Ronnie Milsap Discography • Ronnie Milsap Books

Monk's manner was idiosyncratic. Visually, he was renowned for his distinctively "hip" sartorial style in suits, hats and sunglasses. He was also noted for the fact that at times, while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano. One of his regular dances consisted of continuously turning in a counterclockwise fashion, which has drawn comparisons to ring-shout and Sufi whirling.  He is one of only five jazz musicians to be featured on the cover of Time (the other four being Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Wynton Marsalis, and Dave Brubeck). • Thelonious Monk Website • Thelonious Monk Discography • Thelonious Monk Books

A pioneer of television news broadcasting, Murrow produced a series of TV news reports that helped lead to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Murrow was born Egbert Roscoe Murrow near Greensboro, in Guilford County, North Carolina, the son of Roscoe C. Murrow and Ethel F. (nιe Lamb) Murrow. His parents were Quakers. He was the youngest of three brothers and was a "mixture of English, Scots, Irish and German" descent. His home was a log cabin without electricity or plumbing, on a farm bringing in only a few hundred dollars a year from corn and hay. • Edward R. Murrow Books

Born into a poor family in Waco, North Carolina, Patterson was the youngest of eleven children and experienced an insular and troubled childhood. His family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where Floyd was a truant and petty thief. At age ten, he was sent to the Wiltwyck School for Boys, a reform school in upstate New York, which he credited with turning his life around. He stayed there for almost 2 years.

At age fourteen he started to box, trained by Cus D'Amato at his Gramercy Gym. Aged just 17, Patterson won the Gold medal in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics as a middleweight. 1952 turned out to be a good year for the young Patterson; in addition to Olympic gold Patterson won the National Amateur Middleweight Championship and New York Golden Gloves Middleweight championship. By the 1950s, Patterson was a resident of Rockville Centre, New York. • Floyd Patterson Books

A firm supporter of Andrew Jackson, Polk was the last strong pre-Civil War president. Polk is noted for his foreign policy successes. He threatened war with Britain then backed away and split the ownership of the Northwest with Britain. He is even more famous for leading the successful Mexican–American War. He lowered the tariff and established a treasury system that lasted until 1913. A little-known candidate in 1844, he was the first president to retire after a single term without seeking reelection. He died of cholera three months after his term ended. • James K. Polk Books

Sales was born Milton Supman, in Franklinton in Franklin County, North Carolina to Irving and Sadie Supman. His father, a dry goods merchant, had emigrated to America from Hungary in 1894. Sales had two siblings, Leonard Supman (deceased) and Jack Supman (born 1921). His was the only Jewish family in the town; Sales joked the local Ku Klux Klan bought the sheets used for their costumes from his father. Sales got his nickname from his family. His older brothers had been nicknamed "Hambone" and "Chicken Bone". Milton was dubbed "Soup Bone," which was later shortened to "Soupy". When he became a disc jockey, he began using the stage name Soupy Hines. After he became established, it was decided that "Hines" was too close to the Heinz soup company, so he chose the Sales, in part after comedian Chic Sale. • Soupy Sales Books • Soupy Sales Films

William Sidney Porter was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina. His middle name at birth was Sidney; he changed the spelling to Sydney in 1898. His parents were Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter (1825–1888), a physician, and Mary Jane Virginia Swaim Porter (1833–1865). They were married April 20, 1858. When William was three, his mother died from tuberculosis, and he and his father moved into the home of his paternal grandmother. As a child, Porter was always reading. He read everything from classics to dime novels. His favorite work was One Thousand and One Nights. Porter graduated from his aunt Evelina Maria Porter's elementary school in 1876. He then enrolled at the Lindsey Street High School. His aunt continued to tutor him until he was fifteen. In 1879, he started working in his uncle's drugstore and in 1881, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed as a pharmacist. At the drugstore, he also showed off his natural artistic talents by sketching the townsfolk. • William Sydney Porter Books •

Revels was born free in Fayetteville, North Carolina, of a free father of mixed white and black ancestry, and a white mother of Scottish heritage. He was tutored by a black woman for his early education. In 1838 he went to live with his brother, Elias B. Revels, in Lincolnton, North Carolina, and was apprenticed as a barber in his brother's shop. Elias Revels died in 1841, and his widow Mary turned over her assets to Hiram before she remarried. Revels attended the Union County Quaker Seminary in Indiana, and from 1856-57, Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He also studied at a black seminary in Ohio. Revels was ordained a minister in 1845. As a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Revels preached in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, and Maryland in the 1850s. "At times, I met with a great deal of opposition," he later recalled. "I was imprisoned in Missouri in 1854 for preaching the gospel to Negroes, though I was never subjected to violence." In 1845 he became a minister in Baltimore, Maryland and set up a private school. As a chaplain Revels helped raise two black Union regiments during the Civil War in Maryland and Missouri, and took part at the battle of Vicksburg in Mississippi • Hiram Rhoades Revels Books

Scruggs was born in Shelby, North Carolina to Georgia Lula Ruppe and George Elam Scruggs. Scruggs joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in late 1945 and his syncopated, three-finger picking style quickly became a sensation. In 1948 Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt left Monroe's band and formed Flatt and Scruggs. In 1969, Flatt and Scruggs broke up and Scruggs started a new band, the Earl Scruggs Revue, featuring several of his sons. On September 24, 1962 singer Jerry Scoggins, Flatt, and Scruggs recorded The Ballad of Jed Clampett for the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies which was released October 12, 1962. The theme song became an immediate country music hit and was played at the beginning and end of each episode. Flatt and Scruggs appeared in several episodes as family friends of the Clampetts in the following years. • Earl Scruggs Discography • Earl Scruggs Books

After Wolfe's death, his chief contemporary William Faulkner said that Wolfe was their generation's best writer; Faulkner listed himself as second. Wolfe's influence extends to the writings of famous Beat writer Jack Kerouac, authors Ray Bradbury and Philip Roth, among others. He remains one of the most important writers in modern American literature, as he was one of the first masters of autobiographical fiction. He is considered to be North Carolina's most famous writer. • Thomas Clayton Wolfe Books