The family of Donald Gray Hanes would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Salisbury Post.

In the late 1950s, your newspaper took a chance on a teenager, my father, and hired him to be a Salisbury Post carrier. He was the son of a Southern Railway Spencer Shops electrician and a homemaker. My father loved his job and saved every penny he made on his route to put himself through N.C. State University.

He was the first in his family to attend college.

He graduated from NC State with a Bachelor of Science degree in textile technology in 1964 and started out as a plant manager trainee for the Cone Mills Corporation’s Salisbury plant.

He had a successful 35 year career in the textile industry, retiring as director of quality assurance for Vanity Fair Corporation in 2001.

He was able to provide the opportunity of college to both of his children, one of which followed in her father’s footsteps and graduated from N.C. State in 1997.

Additionally 60 years later, his eldest grandson, Daniel Gray Hanes, followed in his footsteps and enrolled as a freshman at N.C. State.

On Oct. 13, he peacefully passed away after a long and courageous battle with Parkinson’s Disease.

That paper route changed the lives of three generations of the Hanes family, and we are forever grateful. Thank you, again.

— Robert Hanes and family

Winston-Salem