The university community on Tuesday honored one of Elon’s pivotal leaders from its early years during a special College Coffee tree planting to mark Founders Day 2011. Family of the late Thomas E. Powell Jr. ’19, founder of Carolina Biological Supply Company, attended the ceremony in front of Lindner Hall.
Elon marks its 122nd birthday this year, and university President Leo M. Lambert used his College Coffee remarks to emphasize the contributions of the school’s early faculty and administrative leaders in shaping what Elon is today.
“We’ve had a tradition these last many years of celebrating a special person on Founders Day to remember that this university didn’t just happen. We didn’t just inherit it,” Lambert said. “It has resulted from the hard work and dedication and love and stewardship and generosity of generations of people. We are the inheritors of that great legacy.”
Lambert welcomed members of Powell’s family to the College Coffee celebration – son Dr. James B. Powell, an Elon life trustee; Jim’s wife, Anne Ellington Powell, a current trustee; son Bill Powell; daughter, Beth Powell; and T.E. Powell’s grandson, Tom Powell IV, an Elon alum.
“We are a better, and stronger, and more vibrant institution today because of the Powell family,” Lambert said.
Thomas E. Powell Jr. graduated from Elon in 1919 and taught biology and geology for his alma mater until 1936. In that time, he earned his master’s degree from UNC Chapel Hill and a doctorate in biology from Duke University.
Powell spent much of his time in fields and marshes gathering laboratory specimens for classes. Foreseeing the need for a biological supply house that could provide schools and colleges with laboratory specimens, he started Carolina Biological Supply Co. in 1927 in a small woodshed beside a pond on Haggard Avenue.
Initially, he operated the business part-time with the help of a few of his college students. As sales increased, Powell left the classroom in 1936 to become a full-time businessman. Under his guidance, the company became the first to successfully ship live protozoan cultures and the first to inject preserved specimens with colored latex to highlight the circulatory system.
During its first year, Carolina Biological offered 100 specimens in its catalog. By the time of Powell’s death in 1987, the company offered more than 25,000 items and recorded approximately $25 million a year in sales. By then, the company was one of the largest of its type in the world.
As a student, Powell belonged to the Clio Literary Society, the Vance and Warren Counties Club, and the Student’s Army Training Corps, a government-directed military program. Elon College honored him with the Outstanding Alumnus of the Year award in 1964. He also received a Doctor of Science Honorary Degree in 1968.
With the help of his family, Powell established the Thomas E. Powell, Jr. Foundation in 1978 for the support of science programs at the school through the Thomas E. Powell, Jr. Professorship.
The Maude Sharpe Powell Professorship was created by the Powell family in honor of Powell’s first wife, who died in 1944. The Caroline E. Powell Building was made possible by a family gift in honor of Powell’s sister, a 1928 graduate of Elon.