Willie Gathrel Hefner (April 11, 1930 – September 2, 2009), was an American radio personality and Democratic U.S. congressman from North Carolina, serving between 1975 and 1999.
Life and career Born in Elora, Tennessee, Hefner graduated from high school in Sardis, Alabama. He attended the University of Alabama, and he became the president and owner of radio station WRKB in Kannapolis, North Carolina. He was a member of the Harvesters Quartet, a group of gospel music singers based in North Carolina, from 1954 to 1967, and was a television performer on numerous North Carolina TV channels.
In 1974, he was elected as a Democrat to the 94th United States Congress; he served a total of 12 terms, from January 3, 1975, until January 3, 1999, when he retired from Congress.
Hefner sat on the House Appropriations Committee and chaired its Subcommittee on Military Construction in the 102nd and 103rd Congresses. After Republicans won control of the House in the 1994 elections, he became the subcommittee's ranking minority member, a post he held through his final term. The subcommittee had jurisdiction over most construction on U.S. military bases, and in both roles Hefner pushed for funding at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. When a Republican colleague proposed renaming a road at the post in his honor, Hefner asked that it not be done; All American Parkway had been named for the 82nd Airborne Division, and he wanted it left that way.
Hefner built a reputation as an advocate for veterans, and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salisbury, North Carolina, was renamed in his honor on April 16, 1999.
After retiring from Congress, Hefner moved with his wife, Nancy, to Alabama. He served from October 2001 until November 2002 as the District One commissioner for Marshall County, Alabama. He died in Huntsville, Alabama, on September 2, 2009, after suffering a brain aneurysm.
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There is an elementary school named after Bill Hefner in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The school is in the city limits but sits on the edge of Ft. Bragg. The school serves students in prek-5th grade. Currently, as of 2022 the school is run by Dr. Donald Cahill and Jessica Cashwell.
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