Faison launches plan to honor native son, astronaut

The Town of Faison is planning to honor its native son and North Carolina’s first astronaut, William Edgar Thornton, with a monument, and those plans got a boost on Tuesday, Aug. 22, when TreeHouse Foods donated $3,500 toward the cause.

Those attending the check presentation ceremony included: Town of Faison representatives Jimmy Tyndall, executive administrator, and Carolyn Kenyon, mayor; Andrew Taylor, president of the Faison Improvement Group (F.I.G.); Anne Taylor, chairperson of the Faison Library/Museum Committee; and TreeHouse Foods employees Human Resources Manager David Smith, Tank Yard Manager Donovan Brock, and Production Manager Eric Gordon.

The most recent estimate for the cost of the monument was $13,500, but updated quotes are obtained about every 15 days, due to possible cost increases. No projected date for ordering the monument has been set, with the Committee planning to move forward as soon as funds are in place.

William Thornton was born in Faison on April 14, 1929 and lived his entire life in the small town until leaving to attend UNC Chapel Hill; he went on to live an extraordinary life as a doctor, inventor and astronaut. He died in Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas, January 11, 2021 and is buried in the Historic Faison Cemetery.

The effort to memorialize Thornton is being spearheaded by the Faison Library/Museum Committee, at the behest of the Town Board, according to Committee Chair Anne Taylor. Money donated for the monument and a dedication ceremony is being collected by F.I.G., an independent third-party 501(c)(3) organization, and deposited in a special account, the William Thornton Memorial Fund.

Plans for the monument were first discussed a few years ago but were tabled by Covid; the effort was revived in April, and, reports Taylor, “Everybody was still gung-ho.”

Enthusiasm for the project is evident from TreeHouse Foods’ sizable donation, as well as generous contributions from the Duplin County Historical Society and the Duplin County Board of Commissioners. Individuals have also begun donating. Taylor stresses that no donation is too small, noting, “We need these big contributions, but it is also meaningful if people give anything in memory of, and to honor, this extraordinary person.”

She emphasizes that pride in Thornton and his accomplishments extends far beyond Faison’s boundaries. “William isn’t just Faison’s,” she explains. “He’s this area’s hero…He also belonged to North Carolina, the whole state.”

Taylor had a personal connection with Thornton, being just two years his junior. “In a small town, you don’t just run around with kids exactly your age; it was a whole bunch of us kids,” she recalls. She remembers going swimming with Thornton in a nearby pond every day during the summer for several years; he eventually helped her get her Red Cross lifesaving certification, allowing her to pull him from the water.

According to Taylor, Thornton’s parents married later in life, and he was an only child. His father died when he was 11. “When Mr. Will died, in a very short period of time, William began to deliver newspapers; he would pick up manual work, like working in cotton; or he would do what people would hire him to do. And we [the town of Faison] had a tent that had movies on Saturdays, and you went and sat in this tent…and William was the projectionist. After a few years, he was able to open his own shop where he repaired radios.” Some of the money Thornton earned went to help his widowed mother (who took a job working in the local pickle plant).

“We weren’t really surprised when William went to UNC Chapel Hill, as a physics major,” Taylor continues. “He also played on the football team. Now, he couldn’t play, because the way he was going to help pay for college was to come back home every Friday, open his radio shop and fix radios — and later televisions — all day Saturday, and make money to go to college and for his mother. Then he would hitchhike back on Sunday afternoon, but he always went to Sunday School and church on Sunday morning. So William said that he was the only amateur football player that played on a nationally ranked team and never got to play.”

Thornton’s eventual accomplishments would include: earning degrees in physics and medicine from UNC, serving in the U.S. Air Force, and serving as a mission specialist on two NASA flights, in 1983 and 1985.

Citizens of Faison cheered on their native son, many going to Florida to watch the 1983 launch in person, while a crowd also congregated at the town’s fire station to watch the 2 a.m. launch together on a big-screen TV. Thornton was then honored by his hometown on Oct. 15, 1983, during William Thornton Day, at which time he delivered a speech in the same fire station where townspeople had gathered a few months earlier to watch the launch of his famous flight.

Thornton’s unique qualifications as both a physician and an astronaut placed him in a position to tackle health issues as they related to space flight. For example, since it was impossible to measure crew members’ weight in space, Thornton developed a device for measuring mass instead, thus allowing him to monitor the effects of weightlessness on the human body. He conducted numerous health-related studies, some necessitating the collection of blood and urine samples, on himself and fellow crew members.

Thornton developed a treadmill for use on the space shuttle and he made improvements to the waste collection facility. The list of his accomplishments is almost endless, as is the list of awards he received, some of which include: the Air Force Legion of Merit, the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States Kern Award, and the NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Award.

No matter the heights to which he rose — literally and figuratively — he never forgot his roots. Throughout his life, he returned to Faison to visit. “Whenever he would come through, he would have NASA patches, and if you were a kid, he would give you patches from the space program,” remembers F.I.G. President Andrew Taylor.

Anne Taylor says there is a message all young people can take from Thornton’s example: “You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to live in the city. You can become what you set your heart on becoming.” She hopes the proposed monument to Thornton will serve as a reminder of this sentiment, and, although an exact spot hasn’t been chosen, she would like to see it placed beside the town’s walking trail where it’s easily visible.

Anyone interested in donating is asked to mail a check, made payable to the William Thornton Memorial Fund, to Faison Improvement Group, PO Box 267, Faison, NC 28341.

Questions about the project should be emailed to faisonimprovementgroup@gmail.com.