When executives came east to discourage local leaders from pursuing a new hospital and medical school, they thought they were dealing with simple minds.

The gang from Chapel Hill even brought a bottle of whiskey, Charles Gaskins remembers. The long-time county commissioner and hospital supporter says the executives never poured a single shot.|

"They wanted not to build a (new) hospital, but to sort of establish a little system of clinics," he remembers. "Our local folks were waiting for them to show up and they kind of came swaggering in and they had whiskey with them, 'Virginia Gentleman.' Everybody knew what they were trying to do. They thought they were going to visit a bunch of country yokels and sell them their plan. They got nowhere and nobody got a drop of whiskey, either. We laughed about that for a long time."

Gaskins, who turned 81 in 2000, is still laughing. He can look back on the hospital's successes, since he has seen them all. First elected commissioner in 1947, he remembers holding bond issues to fund both hospitals. As chairman of its building committee for 21 years, Gaskins has seen major projects emerge from drawings, budgets and plans.

He continued to support the hospital despite objections from other towns in Pitt County, who feared Greenville was getting more than its share of resources. "It was really just a case of county versus city," he says.

One of the reasons he cites for the hospital's success was the leadership of Jack Richardson, who served as chief administrator from 1971 to 1989.

"He was just an honest, public-spirited man," Gaskins says. "He drove a used sheriff's deputy vehicle for years an years and that was by choice. He was unselfish. He had the respect of everybody."

Charles P. Gaskins