His red bandanna says a lot about Charles Sanders.

Sanders has been a physician, a pharmaceutical company CEO and a candidate for U.S. Senate. But, as Ned Cline explains in his book, “Onward and Upward,” Sanders carried a red bandanna throughout his multifaceted career as a reminder of his roots.

You can take a man out of Texas, Cline says, but you can’t take Texas out of the man.

“Onward and Upward” will be of interest in Rowan County for at least two reasons. Cline is a proud Catawba College graduate. After a short but stellar stint at the Salisbury Post, Cline worked at the News & Record in Greensboro for many years.

Since retiring several years ago, he has penned biographies of several influential North Carolinians, including former Lt. Gov. Bob Jordan and oil tycoon and philanthropist Walter Davis — the one whose name is on a library in Chapel Hill, not the basketball player.

Beyond Cline’s local connection, “Onward and Upward” will interest many here because of Sanders’ phenomenal service to this state.

“For more than four decades in both public and private sectors, Sanders has been a driving force in the medical, pharmaceutical and biotech industries,” the book jacket says.  “Though he didn’t start the biotech effort in either state, Massachusetts, where he started his career, is the nation’s leading biotech state, and North Carolina, where he ended his professional work, is pushing to the top of the field.”

The book includes an epilogue by Sanders, as well as a compilation of  colloquialisms he has found useful in life. “It’s not where you start, but where you finish that matters,” for example. And “Find people you admire and learn from them. That’s likely how they learned.”

You can start by reading “Onward and Upward: Charles Sanders, A Life of Leadership.”

“Onward and Upward,” published by Lorimer Press in Davidson, is available at The Literary Bookpost in downtown Salisbury and on Amazon.

— Elizabeth Cook