Wallace Martin

Willard Wallace Martin, Sr., known as Wallace Martin (May 1926 – September 22, 2016), was a college professor and city manager who served in the North Carolina House of Representatives from his native Swain County, dates of service and party affiliation unavailable.

The son of Willard and Sarah Martin, he was reared in Swain County in the far western section of his state some forty miles south of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Martin served in the United States Navy and attended the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, at which he played football and ran track. After his legislative service, he was for two decades a professor at United Methodist-affiliated Pfeiffer College (since University) near Richfield in Stanley County in west central North Carolina, at which he coached tennis and wrestling. After Pfeiffer, he was the town manager for Sunset Beach and then Bald Head Island, both in North Carolina. He retired to a farm in Vernon Hill in southern Virginia, where he and his wife, the former Charlotte Ann Bryson (1931-2007), restored an old farm house and tobacco barns.^[1] Mrs. Martin is interred at Swain Memorial Park in Bryson City, North Carolina.^[2][3]

He is survived by his daughter, Carolyn Martin of the capital city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, two sons, Willard, Jr. (born March 14, 1953),^[4] of Washington, North Carolina, and Richard E. Martin of the capital city of Raleigh, North Carolina. He died in Raleigh at the age of ninety; his memorial service was held thereafter in Asheville, North Carolina.^[1]