Member in the Spotlight

Duncan MacCalman  (April 2009)

 If you visit Antioch Baptist Church on any given Sunday, it would be easy to overlook Duncan MacCalman.  He doesn’t have a highly visible role in the worship service, and there’s nothing that would make him stand out in the crowd.  In fact, you might say that he simply looks a lot like a retired lawyer… which he is.  But that’s not the whole story. 

Duncan was born in Pennsylvania, but grew up in Nyack, New York (just north of “the city”) where his father was Superintendent of Schools.  He came south in 1948 to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree there in 1952.  After graduation, he entered the Air Force, and spent two and a half years as engineering officer for a squadron of F-86 jet aircraft. 

Four years later, he returned to Chapel Hill to attend law school.  Soon after returning, he also married his college sweetheart – a local girl named Barb Bynum whose family was well established both in the White Cross community and at Antioch Baptist Church. 

When Duncan completed his J.D. degree in 1956, he and Barb moved to New York, where he began a career in corporate law that eventually carried him all over the Midwest and into Canada. 

After retirement, the MacCalmans returned to the White Cross community, where Duncan began focusing his research skills and experience on new avocations.  He became interested in local history and genealogy.  Soon, he found himself in the role of church historian.  In 2006, as Antioch Baptist prepared to celebrate its bicentennial, he even compiled a book entitled The Families Which Built White Cross, NC and Antioch Baptist Church.  (A copy of that work is now part of the North Carolina Collection at the UNC Library.) 

Duncan’s most notable contribution, however, grew out of a discussion following one of our Men’s Club meetings.  He recalls that the program that night focused on disaster relief work being carried out in Louisiana and Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  Wondering if similar projects weren’t needed in locations closer to home, he took his questions to the UNC School of Public Health.  They suggested several counties in eastern North Carolina that were still suffering the impact of a 1999 hurricane. 

That casual inquiry, in October 2007, has now grown into the “Down East Initiative” – an ambitious and still-evolving project that aims to bring new hope to Duplin County – an area of need “right in our own back yard.” 

Concern initially focused on health care, which Duncan considered “the most visible and compelling need.”  Although the county had a mobile dental unit, there was no one to operate it.  What was more, those who needed it most had no insurance, and were unable to afford even the “co-pay.”  Once Duncan met with the school nurses, he began to discover other daunting needs as well. 30% of the county’s students drop-out prior to high school graduation.  60% of its students can’t pass the state’s comprehensive math and reading exam.  Many can’t see beyond the cycle of poverty. …And teachers are overwhelmed. 

Most would-be reformers, in the face of such overwhelming problems and limited resources, would simply have given up.  Instead, Duncan became the catalyst and driving force in coordinating a number of related efforts.  Two years later, volunteers now staff a periodic eye clinic.  A physician’s assistant has opened an ear/nose/throat clinic, a nephrologist and obstetrician are available by appointment, and volunteers work with families to teach them how to make the most of Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs.  Efforts are also being made to recruit a dietician, a nutritionist, and a pediatrician to help educate families, along with volunteers to operate that mobile dental unit. 

In addition, local churches in the county have begun to get involved in providing tutors for elementary schools; and surplus computers are being purchased, reconfigured and equipped with software to replace broken or aging machines in school computer labs. 

Duncan would be one of the first to minimize his own role, pointing out that these improvements have resulted from the sacrifices and service of many individuals, some of whom had been plodding steadily along for years.  Still, success sometimes depends on the right person, with the right gifts, at the right time.  It’s why God equips different parts of “body” for different functions.  Just ask Duncan.

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