Just as the state House did last week, state Senate members elected three new members to the UNC Board of Governors and re-elected five others during voting held Thursday.
The Senate elected Frank A. Daniels Jr., Ann Goodnight and Clarice Cato Goodyear as new members to the BOG. They join Ronald Leatherwood, Purnell Swett, and Marshall Pitts, Jr., who were newly elected earlier this week by the state House.
Daniels, Goodnight, and Goodyear were joined in election by R. Steve Bowden, John W. Davis, III, Peter Hans, Adelaide Daniels Key, and Estelle Sanders, all of whom were re-elected by the Senate.
Vote totals were not announced on the Senate floor when Sen. A.B. Swindell, D- 11, announced the results of the election.
Daniels is a former publisher of the News and Observer. Goodnight is the wife of SAS CEO and founder Jim Goodnight and was heavily involved in the passage of the Wake County school bond issue in November. Goodyear is a retail executive with clothing store Cato.
Those elected will begin their terms on July 1.
Senators had to chose among a slate of nine candidates, well short of state law requirements that dictate at least two qualified candidates for each open seat. The Senate had eight open seats this election cycle.
The lone person not elected on the ballot was Luther Hodges Jr., a Republican, who was denied election during the controversial 2005 selection process.
In 2005, the late Sen. Jeanne Lucas informed members, prior to the floor vote, that four nominees had asked for their names to be withdrawn, including Hodges who said later that he never asked for his name to not be considered. When the names were withdrawn, it left eight names for eight spots.
Senate Republicans protested the vote and the removal of the nominees, but the vote occurred as scheduled.