" Capus Waynick, newspaper editor and publisher, legislator, public servant, and ambassador, was born in Rockingham in 1889. His family moved to Greensboro when he was thirteen so that the children would have better educational opportunities. He graduated from Greensboro High School and went on to study for two years at the University of North Carolina. He left school to return to Greensboro to work as a newspaper reporter. He later became editor, publisher, and part owner of the Greensboro Record.
In 1923 Waynick moved to High Point, the city he would call home for the remainder of his long life. There he became the editor of the High Point Enterprise, a position that he held for eleven years. During that time he served terms in the North Carolina House of Representatives and Senate. In 1934 Waynick left journalism for a series of fairly short-term public service jobs, including serving as chairman of the State Highway Commission, but in 1937 resumed work at the Enterprise until 1942. He returned to the public sector in 1943 at which time he founded the Health Education Institute, a special project geared towards raising awareness of venereal disease.
Active in the Democratic Party in North Carolina, including serving as the chairman, 1948-1949, Waynick was tapped to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua and later to Colombia. He was also called upon by President Harry Truman to launch the Point Four program aimed at aiding and revitalizing underdeveloped nations. Back in North Carolina, he served as State Adjutant General from 1957 to 1961. After a brief retirement to High Point at age seventy-three, Waynick was asked to chair a committee High Point dedicated to race relations. He did such a spectacular job with it that Governor Terry Sanford enlisted him to become his special aide for racial affairs. The elder statesman traveled across North Carolina calling for the end of “second class citizenship” for African Americans.
Frequently honored for public service, Waynick was the recipient of honorary degrees and distinguished awards. Despite having been a college dropout, he was much admired for his extraordinary intellect and his ability to master any task required of him. Sanford said of Waynick, “North Carolina’s character was considerably shaped by what he did.” Waynick married Elizabeth Hunt McBee in 1915. They lived on the twenty-four-acre Fieldstone Farm near High Point, where Waynick maintained his own golf course. He died on Sept. 7, 1986, and is buried in High Point’s Oakwood Cemetery.
References:
Capus Waynick, North Carolina Roads and Their Builders (1954, 1966)
Capus Waynick, North Carolina and the Negro (1964)
William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, VI, 135-136—sketch by William S. Powell
Greensboro News and Record, Sept. 8, 1986
(Raleigh) News and Observer, Sept. 8, 1986
High Point Enterprise, Jan. 29, 1961; Sept. 8 and 10, 1986"
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