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N.C. DOCUMENTS 

 CLEARINGHOUSE 



JUN 26 1989 

 RC. STATE LIBRAfii 



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UNC SEA GRANT ■ APRIL 1989 



APRIL 1989 



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FRANK THOMAS 



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JOE & CELIA BONA VENTURA 



w the April issue, Coastwatch continues its yearly 

 tradition of honoring people who have shaped the 

 North Carolina coast. 



Researcher and extension specialist Frank Thomas 

 of North Carolina State University provided more than 

 30 years of service to North Carolina's seafood industry. 



Joe and Celia Bonaventura, scientists at the Duke 

 University Marine Laboratory, have made laboratory 

 discoveries that earned them world acclaim and put 

 new products on the shelves. 



And Clinton Willis organizes and speaks out for the 

 fishermen of Carteret County. 



Frank Thomas 



B Y NANCY DAVIS 



It's 1958, and Frank Thomas is 

 traveling the back roads of Eastern 

 North Carolina. He's driving a 

 state car — one of those old black 

 ones with an N.C. State College 

 emblem stamped on the door. 



The car alone makes him suspect. 

 But he's from the state capital to boot. 



Why, he could be a spy. Or 

 worse. . . a revenue agent. 



Thomas chuckles at that scenario 

 now. But more than once in those 

 early years, when he stopped to intro- 

 duce himself, folks ran the other way. 



CLINTON WILLIS 



They just weren't sure what to 

 make of that young fella from that 

 college up in Raleigh. Why, he 

 was trying to give them advice on 

 how they ought to operate their 

 seafood plants. Imagine. 



But that was more than 30 

 years ago. Now people in the 

 state's seafood industry can't im- 

 agine what it would have been 

 like without Frank Thomas. 



They credit him with nothing less 

 than pulling the state's seafood 

 industry into the modern age. 



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