Elon grandparent Tony Duke Sr., GP ’08, ’09, couldn’t let a little snow slow him down. Nor could the snow stop a coterie of Elon Leadership Fellows from meeting March 2 with the longtime university supporter.
While Elon canceled classes and the physical plant and food service staff fought to keep the lights on, Duke held a specially scheduled leadership colloquium with Elon students Ashley Barnas ‘10, Lauren Flood ‘11 and Andrew Schroth ‘10. They were joined by communications major Milena Duke ’09 and Jim Elder ’60, a former Elon history professor and former faculty adviser to the Liberal Arts Forum.
Elon parents Tony and Olga Cabrer Duke were also in attendance, as was Rex Waters, associate dean of students.
Tony Duke Sr. shared from his 90 years of life-experience as a decorated World War II veteran, public citizen, philanthropist and published author. “My life may be interesting, but it’s your life we need – your minds, your spirits,” he said.
Duke noted several of the great challenges that today’s generation faces, similar to his generation’s challenges of worldwide economic depression and war. “You have terrorism and this economic mess that no one knows where it will end,” he said. “Now is the time to prepare yourselves to serve. And this great university is the perfect place to do it!”
Duke shared several stories from his recently published autobiography, Uncharted Course: The Voyage of My Life (Bayview Press, Northport, NY, April 2007). he took the students, as he does his readers, on a journey-of-journeys through his birth into three of the 19th and 20th centuries most prominent families – the Dukes of Piedmont North Carolina and the Biddles and Drexels of the Schuylkill and Delaware river valleys of Eastern Pennsylvania; his six-year service in the US Navy; and, ultimately, the master work of his life, the Boys and Girls Harbor charter school system in Manhattan.
The Boys and Girls Harbor summer camps and charter schools have served more than 20,000 economically disadvantaged youths since Duke’s initial forays in philanthropy beginning at the age of 19 in 1937.
Duke is the grandfather of two Elon students – Nicholas R. Duke Jr. ’08, of Charlottesville, Va., and Milena R. Duke ’09, of East Norwich, NY.
Duke’s extended family has a long record of philanthropy and service at Elon. He is the grandson of Benjamin Newton Duke, one of the principal benefactors in the creation of Duke University. Benjamin Duke helped personally finance the construction of the Artelia Roney Duke Science Building on Elon’s Scott Plaza in honor of his mother, a native of Haw River, N.C. Benjamin Duke’s maternal great-uncle, William H. Trollinger, made the initial land grant to the Christian Church in 1888 to found (then) Elon College.
Tony Duke Sr. spent two days on campus meeting with family members, students and administrators as part of the activities surrounding the inaugural concert of The Mary Duke Biddle Chamber Music Series. His first cousin, Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, of Durham, N.C., who is also the granddaughter of Benjamin Duke, is a former Elon trustee and the chair emerita of The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation.
The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation has supported the arts and letters at Elon for almost half a century.
