Union Bank honors founders with new VGCC Scholarship


Celebrating the creation of the Union Bank & Trust Founding Directors Academic Achievement Award at the bank’s headquarters in Oxford were, in front, from left: Robert T. Williford, II, Dr. Stelfanie Williams, Stanley H. Fox, R. Gene Edmundson, Betty Lou Gentry, representing her late husband, B. Autry Gentry, and Crawford A. Knott; and in back, from left: F. Wills Hancock, IV, Herbert T. Gregory, Jr., T. Gray Yancey, Thomas M. Combs, James B. Belcher, Chandler T. Currin, Jr., and Mayor Darryl Moss. Dr. Williams is the president of VGCC and a member of the Union Bank board of directors. Fox and Edmundson are former chairmen of the board, while Knott is the current chairman.  (VGCC photo)

Celebrating the creation of the Union Bank & Trust Founding Directors Academic Achievement Award at the bank’s headquarters in Oxford were, in front, from left: Robert T. Williford, II, Dr. Stelfanie Williams, Stanley H. Fox, R. Gene Edmundson, Betty Lou Gentry, representing her late husband, B. Autry Gentry, and Crawford A. Knott; and in back, from left: F. Wills Hancock, IV, Herbert T. Gregory, Jr., T. Gray Yancey, Thomas M. Combs, James B. Belcher, Chandler T. Currin, Jr., and Mayor Darryl Moss. Dr. Williams is the president of VGCC and a member of the Union Bank board of directors. Fox and Edmundson are former chairmen of the board, while Knott is the current chairman.
(VGCC photo)

Oxford-based Union Bank has established a new Vance-Granville Community College scholarship to pay tribute to the business and community leaders who founded the bank.

The “Union Bank & Trust Founding Directors Academic Achievement Award” will be presented to a VGCC student for the first time in 2016. This is the second scholarship created by the bank, following the Union Bank/Stanley H. Fox Presidential Merit Award scholarship, which was endowed in 2014. Fox, a former state legislator, is director emeritus on the bank’s board and current vice-chair of the VGCC Board of Trustees. Union Bank is also the presenting sponsor of VGCC’s 31st Annual Endowment Fund Golf Tournament, which will be held on Tuesday, May 5, 2015.

“We are proud to continue our partnership with Vance-Granville Community College by establishing a scholarship that honors and celebrates the directors who started Union Bank,” said Thomas M. Combs, President and CEO of Union Bank. “They had the vision to recognize the need for a community bank in north central North Carolina, and they had the leadership abilities to make that vision a reality. We hope that this new scholarship will support students who also have a vision for the future and who will take on leadership roles in our region.”

Union Bank & Trust Company started in 2006 with locations in Granville County and has since expanded into Franklin, Vance, Person and Wake counties. The bank’s founding directors were Dr. Jodi S. Anderson, James B. Belcher, Thomas M. Combs, Chandler T. Currin, Jr., R. Gene Edmundson, The Honorable Stanley H. Fox, B. Autry Gentry, Herbert T. Gregory, Jr., F. Wills Hancock, IV, Crawford A. Knott, Creedmoor Mayor Darryl Moss, Robert T. Williford, II, and T. Gray Yancey.

Many of those founders still serve on the bank’s board today. They recently held a “reunion” with former directors Fox and Moss to celebrate the creation of the scholarship. Anderson was unable to attend. Gentry, who is no longer living, was represented by his wife, Betty Lou Gentry.

“Union Bank is a strong community partner and supporter of Vance-Granville,” said Dr. Stelfanie Williams, president of VGCC. “On behalf of the students of today and tomorrow, we extend our appreciation to the bank’s leaders for investing in our area’s economic and workforce development.”

Through its Endowment Fund and Scholarship Program, VGCC has awarded more than 8,000 scholarships to students since 1982. Scholarships have been endowed by numerous individuals, industries, businesses, civic groups, churches and the college’s faculty and staff. Tax-deductible donations to the VGCC Endowment Fund have often been used to honor or remember a person, group, business or industry with a lasting gift to education. For more information, call (252) 738-3409.