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Maurice J Koury (1929-2016) was an American textile businessman and philanthropist who founded Carolina Hosiery Mills inc along with his brother Ernest Koury. [1] Carolina Hosiery is the largest manufacture of socks in the US. [2]
Ernest Koury started the company in the basement of their parents home in their hometown in Burlington, NC in 1945 after returning from serving the United States Air Force. Maurice joined after he finished his bachelor's degree in chemistry from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1948.
The Koury brothers had been operating the mill for over 60 years before his death and it is now being led by their immediate family. Carolina Hosiery today manufactures well known brands such as Wrangler, Drake, Realtree, Top Flite, Ducks Unlimited as well as private labels for department stores and sporting good chains. It also acquired another Burlington based mill, Jefferies Socks, a decade ago, which is now its division.
The Koury brothers have been active supporters throughout their lives of public education and athletics in the Carolina community. Maurice was an active member of his alma mater's Board of Trustees, Elon University's Board of Trustees and of the Medical Foundation of North Carolina. [3] He led the successful fund-raising drive in the early 1980s as the president of the Educational Foundation to finance the construction of the Dean Smith Center, the Tar Heels basketball arena, and the adjacent natatorium, which is also named for Koury.
Their donations helped establish The Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professorship in the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC-Chapelhill in honor of their mother. [4] In recognition of their generosity various buildings have been named after them:
Maurice Koury and his wife were honored in 2011 with the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, which is the highest award of the Roman Catholic Church for their long life commitment of service to their community and catholic education. [5]
Alamance County is a county in North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 171,415. Its county seat is Graham. Formed in 1849 from Orange County to the east, Alamance County has been the site of significant historical events, textile manufacturing, and agriculture.
Burlington is a city in Alamance and Guilford counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the principal city of the Burlington, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Alamance County, in which most of the city is located, and is a part of the Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point Combined Statistical Area. The population was 57,303 at the 2020 census, which makes Burlington the 18th largest city in North Carolina.
Susan Rose Wolf is an American moral philosopher and philosopher of action who is currently the Edna J. Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She taught previously at Johns Hopkins University (1986–2002), the University of Maryland (1981–1986) and Harvard University (1978–1981).
Elon University is a private university in Elon, North Carolina. Founded in 1889 as Elon College, Elon is organized into six schools, most of which offer bachelor's degrees and several of which offer master's degrees or professional doctorate degrees.
William Brantley Aycock was an American educator who served as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1957 until 1964 and was the retired Kenan Professor of Law at the UNC School of Law. He was born in Lucama, North Carolina in 1915.
Walter M. Williams High School, the flagship school of the Alamance-Burlington School System, is a high school in Burlington, North Carolina, United States. It was named in honor of philanthropist, industrialist, and former Burlington City Schools chairman Walter M. Williams. The school entered its eighth decade of operation in the 2022 school year.
Woody Lombardi Durham was an American play-by-play radio announcer for the North Carolina Tar Heels football and men’s basketball programs from 1971 to 2011.
The University of North Carolina School of Law is the law school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Established in 1845, Carolina Law is among the oldest law schools in the United States and is the oldest law school in North Carolina.
Julian Shakespeare Carr was an American industrialist, philanthropist, and white supremacist. He is the namesake of the town of Carrboro, North Carolina.
Burlington Industries, formerly Burlington Mills, is a diversified American fabric maker based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Founded by J. Spencer Love in Burlington, North Carolina in 1923, the company has operations in the United States, Mexico, and India and a global manufacturing and product development network based in Hong Kong with over 8000 employees on several sites in the United States, Canada and worldwide.
The Elon University campus is a 636-acre (2.57 km2) campus in Elon, North Carolina United States. The campus is mostly located along East Haggard Avenue between Manning Avenue and North Oak Avenue, and North Williamson Avenue between the railroad tracks and University Drive. Other minor streets travel through and into campus. The campus is about three miles (5 km) from Interstate 40/85 and abuts the city of Burlington.
The UNC Claude A. Adams Jr. and Grace Phillips Adams School of Dentistry is the school of dentistry of the University of North Carolina. It is located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. It is currently ranked second among all dental schools in the U.S. and is consistently ranked among the best in the world according to two independent rankings. Founded in 1950 as the UNC School of Dentistry, it was the only dental school in North Carolina until 2011, when East Carolina University School of Dental Medicine became the second. In 2019, the school received its largest single donation of $27.68 million, resulting in a name change to honor Dr. Claude A. Adams Jr. and Grace Phillips Adams. Dr. Adams was a North Carolina dentist that practiced in Durham until his death in 2018.
Over 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students live in campus housing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during a regular school year. Forty residence halls are grouped into 16 residential communities across campus.
John Sprunt Hill was a North Carolina lawyer, banker and philanthropist who played a fundamental role in the civic and social development of Durham, North Carolina, the expansion of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the development of rural credit unions in North Carolina during the first half of the 20th century.
William Rand Kenan Jr. was an American chemist, engineer, manufacturer, dairy farmer, and philanthropist.
The Edgemont neighborhood is a community of mill works located in Durham, North Carolina. Previously known as Smoky Hollow, this area developed around the Durham Hosiery Mills in the late 19th century. Durham was a “raw whistle-stop village” along the Great North Carolina Central Rail Road that transformed into one of the largest tobacco cities in the United States. The Durham City Bull became one of the better-known tobacco trademarks with the help of the big players in the industry, W. T. Blackwell and Company and Julian Carr. The success of these tobacco mills started overflowing into other industries, mainly textile mills that produced cloth bags, socks, and other hosieries. As demands rose, communities began growing and changing around the factories. A shift in the racial make up of the workforce was reflected in Edgemont's shift to a more African American dominant community as the years progressed. Julian Carr Jr. was one of the first to allow black workers in factory level jobs to help cope with the high demands. This industrialist's decision to reach over the race barrier is part of what made Durham “the City of the New South.” The Edgemont Neighborhood is just one of many examples of how Durham became one of the more progressive and tolerant locations for African Americans in the country.
Dalton Larkin McMichael, Sr. was an American textile executive and philanthropist. He was ranked among the top fifty most influential textile executives in the twentieth century by Textile World Magazine. He was inducted into the Class of 2003 American Textile Hall of Fame by the American Textile History Museum.
Richard J. "Dick" Richardson is an American former political scientist, holding the Burton Craig Professorship at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Nelson Ferebee Taylor was an American lawyer and educational administrator who served as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1972 to 1980.
Sarah Graham Kenan was an American heiress and philanthropist. She inherited a third of her sister's share of the Standard Oil fortune in 1917 and established the Sarah Graham Kenan Foundation. Through her foundation, Kenan contributed financially to various institutions including the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina, the University of North Carolina, Duke University, Saint Mary's School, and the Duplin County Board of Education. Her home, located in the Market Street Mansion District in Wilmington, North Carolina, now serves as the official residence of the chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. In 1930, through an endowment she made, the Southern Historical Collection was established at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
