Wake Forest Magazine, March 2007 - Past Issues - Wake Forest ...

P R O F I L EModest manPorter Byrum (JD ’42)remains humbleabout his success.By Kerry M. King (’85)HEN PORTER BYRUMW(JD ’42) RECEIVED theSchool of Law’s highest honor,the Carroll Weathers Award, at alaw-alumni banquet last fall, heprobably would have preferred tobe out hunting or fishing insteadof wearing a suit and sitting in afancy country club. He’s not someonewho likes a lot of attentionor who puts on airs. He’d just assoon talk about the three-hundredpoundRussian boar he killed twentyyears ago as his career as a highlysuccessful attorney and businessmanin Charlotte.After opening his practice morethan fifty years ago to take whatevercases came through the door, Byrumspent much of his career workingwith only two clients, who not coincidentallybecame lifelong friends.He traveled around the world withone, buying and reselling airplanes.He helped the other develop one ofCharlotte’s first shopping centers,which he later bought.Byrum, 86, is only the seventhperson to receive the Weathersaward since it was first awarded toand named for Carroll W. Weathers(’22, JD ’23), who served as dean ofthe School of Law from 1950 until1970. Although he stopped practicinglaw five years ago, Byrum continuesto manage the shopping centerfrom a small, nondescript basementoffice, decorated with the mountedheads of two nine-point bucks andthe aforementioned Russian boarthat he killed on property he ownsnear Charlotte.He’s quick to attribute his successto the example set by his father,a Baptist minister. In 1998, he fundedthe John Thomas Byrum Scholarshipin the law school in memoryof his father, a 1908 graduate. The42 WAKE FOREST MAGAZINE