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NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
into the pithy language required for our state’s large Historical Commission in 1903 (now the North font, limited lettered metal signs, capable of being Carolina Office of Archives and History), the mission read in a passing car at highway speed. You try to put of the Office of Historical Research and Publications a very complicated and nuanced history in only five to is to foster, promote, and encourage study and appresix lines of text and twenty-five spaces per line. Now, ciation of North Carolina’s history as a state through try to do that and research and writmake ten PhD histoing. Throughout his A STERLING EXAMPLE OF HOW ONE MAY rians on the marker career, Mike Hill has CONTRIBUTE MIGHTILY TO A NOBLE committee, the local worked tirelessly to small-town marker fulfill that mission, MISSION OF STATE SERVICE – PRESERVING sponsors, living relaall in service to the AND TELLING THE IMPORTANT STORIES OF tives or descendants collective memory of a marker subof North CarolinNORTH CAROLINA AND AIDING HIS FELLOW ject – all of them – ians and to reaching North Carolinians on CITIZENS TO RECALL AND REFLECT ON THE content. Not easy. Now, do all of that their own terms with COMPLICATED HISTORY OF OUR HOME and maintain a great clearly communicatrelationship with ed, accurate stories STATE TO HELP US BETTER UNDERSTAND DOT Maintenance in about the state’s past, each division across our past. OUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS TODAY the state. Mike earned his WHILE WORKING FOR A BRIGHTER FUTURE. And that is just the BA from the Univermarker program. sity of North Carolina Mike’s work for the State has also included deep at Chapel Hill in 1976 with a double major in history involvement in a wide range of historical research in and journalism, followed by an MA in History from support of other departmental units or in collaborathat same institution. But that did not end his education with those other units, especially the Division of tion. Few of us have continued to read and study in a State Historic Sites and for the North Carolina Hisgraduate seminar-type fashion for decades following torical Commission, the agency’s policy-setting comour formal education as Mike has continued to do. His mission. He has participated in legislatively directed reading schedule and methodology is staggering, and studies such as the 1898 Wilmington Coup study, a he is always pulling from that personal study to inform research and writing project that involved a great whatever he might be up to at the moment. deal of sensitive diplomacy. He has also contributed With a lifelong study of North Carolina history, to feasibility studies for the addition of sites or museprodigious memory, and precise, straightforward ums to our department. He has also helped with work writing, Mike has been involved in too many North around monuments, including the proposed African Carolina history projects to note. But, I am willing to American Monument on the State Capitol grounds. lay a wager that he is among the most read historiAnd Mike’s work on statewide commemorations ans in the state, if for no other reason than his work has been deep. Recent examples include the Bicenon the Highway Historical Marker program. Think of tennial of the War of 1812, the centennial of North all of those people slowing down to read his words Carolina’s role in World War I and the sesquicentenevery day, all over the state. Our highway historical nial of the American Civil War, as well as the current marker program, among the oldest in the nation, is efforts to mark the centennial of women’s suffrage the state’s most visible public history project – and just this year. greatly beloved. Mike was the long-time administraAdditionally, the Department often called upon tor of this program, (1984–2015) and wrote or edited his writing skills for a wide variety of public history almost a quarter of the 1609 markers that have been projects, including contributions to forty-five nomierected over the last eighty-five years. These marknations for National Register of Historic Places in his ers describe the events, places, and people that define early career, speeches for agency secretaries, biograNorth Carolina’s very identity in an accurate and phies of North Carolina Award recipients, and a mulcomprehensive fashion. During Mike’s tenure as protitude of reports on many historic places and entities. gram administrator, 360 new markers were placed, He has also written more than a few official proclamany dedicated to telling North Carolina stories premations for governors and legislative leaders. viously untold or under told. He is particularly proud Mike has served as Editor of the North Carolina – and we are greatly appreciative of – his efforts to Historical Review, the publication of our department, expand knowledge of the African American experileading the important and ongoing historiographical ence in North Carolina through our marker program. work of North Carolina history, and has led the HisMike is legendary for his ability to distill the accurate torical Publications unit with its multitude of digital facts of a complex event or complicated individual