An unveiling celebration is planned for September at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines, where the bust will permanently reside.
Famous for his flowing white hair, trademark bow tie and fedora hat, Ragan was owner, editor and publisher of The Pilot newspaper in Southern Pines for 28 years.
He was also the first N.C. Secretary of Cultural Resources, first chairman of the N.C. Arts Council and a member of the founding commission and original board of trustees of the N.C. School of the Arts.
Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. named Ragan state poet laureate in 1982. His books of poetry were twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He also served for many years as executive editor of The News & Observer of Raleigh and was a leader in numerous artistic, literary and journalistic organizations.
Ragan was instrumental in preserving Weymouth, the home of historical novelist James Boyd, as a nonprofit cultural center, and in creating the N.C. Literary Hall of Fame, which is housed there. He was inducted posthumously into the Hall of Fame in 1997.
Launched last year, the “Bring Sam Home” campaign was organized by a group of Ragan’s friends to purchase a bust that was commissioned in the final months of his life and for which he sat in his office at the newspaper.
The artist, Gretta Lange Bader of Alexandria, Va., has worked in the National Portrait Gallery and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Her more than 30 commissions include U.S. Sen. J. William Fulbright, Frank Church and Claiborne Pell, as well as Pinehurst No. 2 golf course designer Donald Ross.
Her eight-foot statue of Fulbright graces the campus of the University of Arkansas.
Visit the Bring Sam Home campaign online at www.ncwriters.org/bringsamhome.htm for further details, including a profile of the artist and a photo of the bronze.
