In Memoriam: The Charlotteans We Lost in 2024

Charlotte said goodbye to a host of prominent citizens in 2024: from civic leaders to fixtures in the morning paper; from slain law enforcement officers to a respected designer and a beloved brewer. We recall and honor their lives and what they meant to their city.

Ed Crutchfield

Charlotte’s rise as a national banking center was built around two men who served as its foundational towers: Hugh McColl and Ed Crutchfield. The towers were, in a sense, literal. The 42-story building at 301 S. College St., once home to Crutchfield’s First Union Bank and now known as One Wells Fargo Center, was the city’s tallest building when it opened in 1988. Four years later, under McColl’s leadership, 60-story Bank of America Tower surpassed it. The two men and their institutions were ferocious rivals—in business.

Ed Crutchfield, Courtesy, Charlotte Observer Photograph Collection/Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room/Charlotte Mecklenburg Library

But they cooperated enough on civic projects to help turn Charlotte into a banking capital and significant city. Both were members of “The Group,” a collection of private-sector leaders who, in the 1980s and ’90s, helped establish the city as a center for business headquarters with a vibrant downtown and rich cultural life. Their work vaulted a midsize Southern city to new cachet as a national powerhouse, and the work continues. Crutchfield hasn’t been around to see much of it: He retired because of health concerns in 2000, and he died Jan. 2 in Vero Beach, Florida, of complications from dementia, at 82. But he left his stamp all over Charlotte.

Crutchfield was born in Dearborn, Michigan, and raised in Albemarle. After his graduation from Davidson College in 1963 and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, he went to work at First Union, then a small bank, in 1965. He became its president seven years later.

But small banks at the time were in danger of being overtaken by larger banks in New York and other major cities. That changed in 1985, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that banks in multiple states could form regional compacts that didn’t have to include counterparts from all states. That opened the door for smaller banks like First Union and McColl’s NationsBank to merge with other financial institutions, mainly in the Southeast and on the East Coast. In 1998, NationsBank merged with San Francisco-based Bank of America and moved its headquarters to Charlotte. First Union acquired three East Coast banks in the late 1990s before, in 2001, it merged with Winston-Salem-based Wachovia and took its name. Wells Fargo acquired Wachovia in 2008 amid that year’s financial crisis. The deals made Charlotte the nation’s second-largest banking and financial services center, behind only New York.

“My notion,” Crutchfield once said, “is that we have been like fish who have been restricted to a little creek and only allowed to grow to a certain size.”

Even as a successful businessman, Crutchfield retained his small-town Southern ways, sealing deals with a handshake and spending his free time hunting and fishing. His and his city’s success, he said during an interview on PBS’ Frontline in 2004, were the product of a simple quality: “That’s the main thing it took, was nerve. … You had to be able to think outside the box a bit.” 

Dan Wade

It’s a steamy Thursday afternoon just after Labor Day, and a throng of brewers and friends collect at the bar and around tables stocked with burgers, hot dogs, and barbecue. As usually happens at gatherings of Charlotte’s beer community, there’s plenty of chatter and laughter between swigs. Still, everyone knows why they’re here, at Town Brewing Co. in Wesley Heights. They’ve come to honor Dan Wade by—how else?—brewing in his honor.

Dan Wade, Courtesy, Wooden Robot

Wade, Wooden Robot Brewery’s co-founder and head brewer, was one of the most beloved and respected figures in Charlotte independent brewing. His accidental death on Feb. 20 was the first genuine tragedy in a local industry that’s swelled to more than 100 breweries since 2011. (In May, the state Department of Labor levied a $2,000 fine against the brewery for failing to cover or install other safeguards against a fall from a skylight.) Immediately afterward, local brewers—led by Protagonist Beer and Resident Culture Brewing Co.—set up GoFundMe campaigns to raise money for Wade’s family and Wooden Robot’s employees. Wade left behind his wife, Samantha, and son, David, born on New Year’s Day.

Town and other breweries collaborated to brew a Munich Helles named Cosmic Ballet, one of Wade’s unused beer names. Sales will benefit Wade’s family. 

Lynn Wheeler

Lynn Wheeler was a seven-term Republican City Council member whose biggest contribution to Charlotte was her vocal support of the uptown arena now known as the Spectrum Center. That support cost her: Opposition to the arena project led to her electoral defeat in 2003, and she never served on the council again.

Lynn Wheeler, Photo by Nancy Pierce

But when Wheeler, 80, died Feb. 24 of pancreatic cancer, her associates and colleagues—of, notably, both parties—mainly recalled her colorful personality. Wheeler, a former TV reporter, never shied away from the microphone or telephone. She was a passionate schmoozer who loved to exchange information and chat with her contacts all over town in government, business, and media. She dressed impeccably.

“She says she receives about 50 calls before the phone stops ringing well into the night. Trusted friends and reporters dial her up regularly, and she them,” Michael Gordon wrote in a long 2001 profile of Wheeler for The Charlotte Observer. “Wheeler distributes news tips like a mother robin doles out worms. Given this relationship, it’s amazing anyone outside the media ever tells Wheeler anything. But they do, and she looms over public discourse in Charlotte like some high-heeled cellphone tower.”

Wheeler, a Richmond, Virginia, native, won election to the council as a district representative in 1989, the same year as future Mayor and North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory. Four years later, Wheeler won an at-large seat she held for a decade, serving as mayor pro tem from 1997 to 1999. She had an amicable but complicated relationship with McCrory: Both considered the other a friend, but they clashed on occasion, on and off the dais. But, although she might well have won, she vowed never to challenge McCrory in the Republican mayoral primary.

“Lynn had a heart of gold for Charlotte, a passion for Charlotte, and a passion for public service,” McCrory told the Observer after her death. “Without her often behind-the-scenes leadership, Charlotte would not be the city it is today.” 

Four U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force Members

On April 29, the task force members approached the Shannon Park home of 39-year-old Terry Clark Hughes Jr. to serve a warrant for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. When they arrived, Hughes began firing an AR-15 rifle. Four officers were killed, four wounded, and police shot and killed Hughes after a standoff. It was the deadliest day for law enforcement in the city’s history.

From left, Sam Poloche and William Elliott of the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections; Charlotte-Mecklenburg Officer Joshua Eyer; and Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Weeks. Courtesy, ASSOCIATED PRESS/ NC Dept. of Corrections

The officers who were killed:

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Joshua Eyer, 31, of Charlotte, who had been named the department’s officer of the month two weeks before.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Weeks, 48, of Mooresville.

North Carolina Department of Adult Correction officers William “Alden” Elliott, 46, of Newton; and Sam Poloche, 42, of Charlotte.

President Joe Biden, already in North Carolina on other business, detoured to Charlotte three days later to meet the injured and the family members of the slain officers. “They are heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice, rushing into harm’s way to protect us,” Biden said in a statement. “We mourn for them and their loved ones. And we pray for the recoveries of the courageous officers who were wounded.” 

Dannye Romine Powell

Dannye Romine Powell, who died of lung cancer at 83 on Oct. 10, was another longstanding and beloved Observer columnist who wrote about people’s lives and loves like the poet she was. It’s how she was hired at the paper in 1974: A poem of hers was published in The Paris Review, and Observer editors were impressed enough to hire her as book editor.

Dannye Romine Powell, Courtesy, Laurie Smithwick

Powell also served as the Observer’s restaurant critic and local-front columnist and married Lew Powell, a longtime editorial section editor. She continued to write poetry, winning a National Endowment for the Arts grant and, twice, the annual Brockman-Campbell Award for the best book of poetry published by a North Carolinian. She taught poetry classes at Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, or Charlotte Lit.

Colleagues described her as incisive, charming, witty, and unfailingly pleasant—but with a keen eye and determination to learn the truth. “No tricks. No contrivances. No preachments. Just powerful parables about real people,” Kays Gary, whom she succeeded as local-front columnist, once said. “More than any one person, Dannye reflects the best in a family newspaper.” 

Traci Zeller

The business description of Traci Zeller Interiors is “classic, chic interiors, for a modern well-lived life.” Hers was a life well-lived—just not long enough. In August, the 50-year-old attorney-turned-interior designer died unexpectedly of an embolism, leaving behind her husband, Michael, and 17-year-old twin sons, Henry and Charlie. A celebration of life was held in early September, and in keeping with Zeller’s aesthetic, guests were asked to dress in their most colorful, fashionable clothing. 

Traci Zeller, Photo by Stephen Karlisch

Designer Brooke Cole, who worked as Zeller’s project coordinator for four years, was one of those attendees. “I’ve met many people in the design community through working with Traci,” she says. “She was always so witty and had stories to bond people together.”

Cheryl Luckett remembers how Zeller helped her navigate her first trip to High Point when she was an up-and-coming designer. “I was literally dazed and confused, and Traci walked up and said, ‘Hey! You can come with me to my appointments today!’ There are so many lessons in how she lived—not just how she designed but how she helped.” 

Her work has appeared many times in these pages, as well as national publications like Veranda, Traditional Home, and Better Homes & Gardens. Zeller’s ability to see beauty in the world and engage with people will no doubt be her greatest legacy. “She just loved beautiful things,” Cole says. “It wasn’t a frivolous pursuit for her, and it was never in an ostentatious way—she just loved beauty.”

Kelly Alexander Jr.

He was a link to Charlotte’s civil-rights past: His father, Kelly Alexander Sr., rejuvenated the Charlotte branch of the NAACP in the 1940s, became the state chapter president in 1948, and eventually chaired the national organization before his death in 1985. Kelly Alexander Jr. followed his father’s path: He served as president of the state NAACP and on the national board of directors, and he represented Charlotte in the General Assembly for 15 years beginning in 2008.

Kelly Alexander Jr. Courtesy, N.C. GENERAL ASSEMBLY

In his time in the legislature, Alexander was known mainly for his advocacy for medical cannabis, which won approval in the Senate but not the House. In late 2023, he announced that his health would prevent him from running for re-election in 2024. He died at 75 on Sept. 6.

“Kelly Alexander was a champion for justice, a voice for the voiceless, and an unwavering advocate for equality,” said Deborah Dicks Maxwell, president of the NAACP North Carolina State Conference. “From his work in the legislature to his leadership within the NAACP, his impact will be felt for generations to come. The entire state of North Carolina has lost a beacon of light, but his legacy will continue to inspire us all to push forward in the fight for justice and equality.”

Ron Green Sr.

“Ron Green Sr. would make you put the newspaper down, shake your head and smile,” read the headline on a Sept. 20 Charlotte Observer sports column by Tom Sorensen. Green, an Observer columnist from 1984 to 1999, had died two days before, at 95. “The game ended, fans left, lights were turned off, doors closed,” wrote Sorensen, also a retired sports columnist. “But to thousands of readers of the Charlotte News and later The Charlotte Observer, the result wasn’t official until they read what Ron Green wrote.”

Ron Green Sr, Courtesy of the Green family

Green was a classic old-time newspaper guy. He went to work for the News straight out high school in 1948 and eventually became sports editor. He jumped to the Observer in 1984 as a columnist, and readers throughout the region came to love his columns about all kinds of sports: pro football, college basketball, boxing, tennis—but especially golf, his favorite.

Green wrote four books about the sport and became known as one of the premier golf writers in the business. He’s a member of the North Carolina Media & Journalism, North Carolina Sports, United States Basketball Writers Association, and Carolinas Golf halls of fame. He received the PGA of America Lifetime Achievement in Journalism award and the Memorial Golf Journalism Award in 2010.

“I still remember the first day I walked into a newspaper office—how it smelled. The ink and the paper. Still remember it. Never got over it,” he once said. “I loved being a newspaperman. I loved the rush, and the crush, of a deadline. And I just never got over feeling good when I saw my byline in the paper.”