He had already rescued one college from extinction, and to Charlotte's good fortune, Billy Wireman arrived in the nick of time to rebirth Queens College — and help navigate the city onto the world stage.

When Queens hired Wireman in 1978, enrollment was down to 541 and the school was on the brink of financial collapse.

Twenty-four years later, when he retired, Queens had paid its debts of nearly $2 million, enrollment had more than tripled and its endowment had risen from $3 million to $33 million.

Queens College had become Queens University of Charlotte after instituting programs that were part of "The Wireman Vision."

Early Saturday, Billy Overton Wireman died at his Charlotte home after a long fight against colon cancer.  He was 72.

Because of his insatiable globe-trotting, Wireman's impact on Charlotte reached far beyond Queens.

"He got Queens on the international map and, in the process, put Charlotte on the international map," said John Belk, a former Charlotte mayor and retired CEO of Belk Inc.  "Because of Billy, Charlotte is known in countries like China and Russia.

"Nobody promoted Charlotte internationally like Billy Wireman did. He didn't have to — but he loved this city."

Humble beginning

A thinker, a writer and scholar, basketball fan and world traveler and lecturer, Wireman was born Oct. 6, 1932, isolated from the world in the small Kentucky town of Quicksand.  But never did he get mired in small-town thinking.  Instead, he grew up devouring global events and couldn't wait to embrace a new culture.

Like many Kentucky boys, he wanted to play basketball, which he did at the state's Georgetown College — a 5-foot-8 shooting guard — where he earned a degree in history and education.

After graduating and serving a two-year stint in the Marines, discharged as a lieutenant, Billy (he was born Billy; his friends endearingly called him "Billy O") Wireman lurched headlong into education.

He earned a master's degree in educational administration at the University of Kentucky, assisting legendary basketball coach Adolph Rupp during the school's 1957-58 championship season.

Three years later, he graduated with a doctorate in education from Vanderbilt University and was hired to coach basketball at Florida Presbyterian College, then a fledgling school in St. Petersburg.

He was quickly promoted to vice president for development.  And in 1968, the school about to close its doors, 35-year-old Billy Wireman was elevated to president — at the time, the country's youngest college president.

"The place was in such bad shape that they literally didn't have enough time to do a national search for a president," son Gary Wireman said.  "But by that time, my father had already demonstrated his fundraising talents."

Raise money he did, and quickly.  His primary source: drugstore magnate and college trustee Jack Eckerd.

Wireman courted Eckerd for three years.  He argued to Eckerd that his retail empire would eventually be swallowed up by corporations, and that having a college named for him would be an appropriate legacy — as Harvard University was for John Harvard and Duke University was for the family of N.C. industrialist James Duke.

It would cost $10 million to get the school on sound footing.  Eckerd repeatedly told Wireman he wasn't interested.

Just as it appeared he never would, Eckerd called Wireman to tell him to come see him — repeating he wasn't interested in the legacy.

Two days later, Wireman walked into Eckerd's office.

Eckerd announced he would give the school the $10 million, but the name change wasn't necessary.  A week later, he brought Wireman a hand-written personal check for an additional $1.5 million to retire the school's operating debt.

The gift saved the college and Wireman persuaded trustees to rename the school Eckerd College.

"The name change was very controversial on campus," Gary Wireman said. "I remember some of the radical students — this was the '60s — put up signs that said: `Welcome to Eckerd Drug College: Rx For the Mind.' "

National reputation

Wireman had left Eckerd and was dean of the finance and business administration school at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., when a Queens College presidential search committee led by the late Duke Power head Bill Lee came calling.

By then, Wireman had a national reputation, particularly in Presbyterian college circles.

Along with saving Eckerd, a report he wrote in 1971 on the status of higher education was adopted by a federal task force as the official statement on American education.

Wireman had reservations about going to Queens, so daunting were the challenges.

He thought a college for women perhaps ought to have a woman as its president.  After examining Queens' financial records, he decided the gender of the president wasn't the most critical issue, but whether Queens "would be a college at all," he told the Observer in 1988.

"The next president could make or break the institution," said Cynthia Haldenby Tyson, who worked with Wireman at Queens as vice president for academic affairs.

"Billy Wireman was the inspired choice."

Yet when he arrived in the summer of 1978, he eased into his position.

"He understood the college had a proud and rich history," said former Mississippi University for Women President Clyda Rent, who was a division head at Queens when Wireman took over.  "He didn't come in and turn everything topsy-turvy."

Instead, he spent much time making himself known to city leaders and to students — beginning a practice of eating with students in the campus cafeteria and discussing issues.

He understood Charlotte, its power structure and its place in the region.  And after reaffirming the school's liberal arts heritage, Wireman began to gradually connect the school to the city.

As he had in St. Petersburg, he quickly forged alliances with such power brokers as Duke Power's Lee and Hugh McColl Jr., the retired Bank of America CEO.  He recruited young business leaders to the trustees board.

"Charlotte at that time was an up-and-coming city," Tyson said.  "Billy recognized the potentials of Charlotte and the potentials of the linkage of Charlotte and Queens."

Wireman understood that an up-and-coming city needed an image of tolerance.

"Billy was a voice — a very steady voice — for equity in our society," said McColl, a former Queens trustees chairman.  "That includes race relations, the whole issue of tolerance and international understanding.

" ... He believed that we're all God's children — that all people are created equal."

`The Wireman Vision'

On campus, he quickly began to cultivate The Wireman Vision.  A year after he took over, Queens added an adult education program and in 1980 added a business school.

He pushed through computer training classes.  He urged the trustees to go the way of other same-sex schools and become co-educational, which Queens did in 1987.  In no time, enrollment blossomed and kept climbing to its current 1,900 students.

And for traditional undergraduates, the school strengthened its core curriculum by focusing on the liberal arts, requiring every student to pursue a yearlong internship and instituting an international trip as part of the tuition.  Today, 90 percent of Queens undergraduates partake in some form of study abroad as part of the John Belk International Program.  On average, only 10 percent of undergraduates at other American colleges study abroad.

"The idea was to get back to the central ideas and abilities that everybody needs as a human being and citizen of the world," said philosophy professor Norris Frederick, Queens' current academic affairs vice president.  "Billy believed that a liberal arts education gets people ready for that.  He so believed in the idea of an international education."

By the time Frederick arrived at Queens in 1985, "the place permeated with Billy's vision. It still does today."

Wireman retired in 2002, an acknowledged innovator of higher education.

"Billy Wireman was one of the great people of his generation in higher education in the United States," Tyson said.  "He faced difficulties and he overcame them.  He knew what standards were in higher education and never compromised them.

"In education, that's a tricky mixture."

Wireman continued to teach classes and increased his travels overseas, often taking students and faculty with him.

He became an education consultant to such countries as India and Indonesia and made numerous trips to South Korea, Russia, China (where he lectured 30 times), Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines.  Wireman wrote books and articles about global issues he encountered in his travels.

"He loved to meet people and couldn't wait to go to a new place," Frederick said.  "In foreign countries, he'd go up and start talking to them, even if he didn't speak their language. ...He would ask, 'What do you think about America these days? What's going on in your country?'

"He had a great zest for life."

He was awarded honorary degrees by Eckerd College, the University of Tampa and Georgetown College.

And on May 7, he was awarded another honorary degree, this one the Doctor of Humane Letters from Queens University of Charlotte, the school he saved.  He was too sick to attend.

"Billy's influence will be here as long as there is a Queens University," Frederick said.  "You can certainly see it in the curriculum. You can see it in many of the faculty who came because of his vision.

"He was always the educator.  He always wanted to know more. Find out more. Read more. People like Billy Wireman are hard to replace." — STAFF WRITER STEVE LYTTLE CONTRIBUTED.

— REACH DAVID PERLMUTT: (704) 358-5061; DPERLMUTT@CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM