News & Observer | newsobserver.com | 2008 NCAA Men's Bracket

I first met Martin Eakes some years back when he was down at the Legislative Building battling for consumers. No, I don't recall the specific issue, but I was pretty sure that I was going to be agreeing with Eakes. He is an unassuming fellow with a pleasant manner. I should have known about him even then, because he and his wife had, after all, founded the Self-Help Credit Union to help people realize the dream of home ownership. They started with a bake sale, and now have several offices and have helped tens of thousands of people.

"You know," a legislator who was there that day told me, "that fellow got one of those MacArthur genius grants. And he went to two Ivy League schools." I later told Martin that his modesty about all that reminded me of what the late, great Sen. Sam Ervin once said: "A fellow complimented me once when he said, 'You know, Sam, you went to Harvard, but you'd never know it.'" 

Martin's a very merry fellow as well. Just the kind of person everyone likes. I'm writing about him now because when I picked up the Saturday morning News & Observer, there was a story about Martin Eakes getting beaten in an apparently random attack outside his office in Durham. He's recuperating. This much is certain: Martin will not lack for friends expressing their good wishes. I'm one of them.