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Alumni Couple Receive Highest Honor from Board of Trustees

Alumni Grants and Awards,
Grayson Mendenhall
November 24, 2008


Vaughn and Nancy Bryson, 1960 graduates of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, received the William Richardson Davie Award from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees.

Established by the Board in 1984, the Davie Award recognizes extraordinary service to the University or society and is the Board’s highest honor. It is named for the Revolutionary War hero who is considered the father of the University. Chancellor Holden Thorp and the Board honored the recipients at a Carolina Inn dinner on November 19.

The Brysons, who reside in Vero Beach, Florida, were among five University alumni to receive the award this year. The others were Peter Thacher Grauer of Greenwich, Conn.; C. Knox Massey Jr. of Atlanta; and James (Jim) Horner Winston of Jacksonville, Fla.

Both North Carolina natives, the Brysons entered UNC the same year, studied pharmacy, and graduated in 1960. Vaughn Bryson worked at Eli Lilly & Co. for thirty-two years, serving as its president and CEO from 1991 to 1993. He has served on the Dean’s Advisory Board at the School and is now on the board of the UNC General Alumni Association. He has also been the visionary behind the renovation of UNC’s baseball stadium. Once work is completed, the UNC baseball team will play its home games on Bryson Field at Boshamer Stadium.

Nancy Bryson has served on the Arts and Sciences Foundation Board, the Friends of the Library Board, and the Board of Visitors at UNC. Both Brysons served on the Carolina First Campaign Steering Committee and have received the General Alumni Association’s Distinguished Service Medal.

The Brysons have given generously to UNC-Chapel Hill in several areas, including:

  • Spurring the funding of an endowed pharmacy professorship in honor of George Cocolas, one of their favorite professors;
  • Creating excellence endowments for the deans of the Schools of Pharmacy and Public Health;
  • Making the first major gift toward the new music library building;
  • Funding a baseball scholarship and creating an endowment for baseball, the first for a sport at UNC.

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