Buies Creek, N.C.-The picturesque garden and fountain on the grounds of Campbell University’s new Anna Gardner and Robert B. Butler Chapel was dedicated Sunday, April 11, in memory of Dr. Lewis M. Fetterman, Jr., a popular professor of pharmacy in Campbell’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. The Lewis M. Fetterman Jr. Memorial Garden was given by Fetterman’s parents, Annabelle Lundy Fetterman and Lewis M. Fetterman, Sr., longtime friends and benefactors of Campbell.
A dedicated teacher, mentor and advisor, Lewis M. Fetterman, Jr. held a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Washington & Lee University and a Master of Science and Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Purdue University. After teaching at the University of Tampa from 1978-80, Fetterman left the profession to work in his family business, the Lundy Packing Company, where he rose to the position of president and general manager. Fetterman retired from the company to return to academia, coming to work as an adjunct professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Campbell in 2001. In 2004, he was promoted to assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.
“We were very fortunate to have Dr. Fetterman as a faculty member,” said Dr. Ronald Maddox, dean of the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. “His talent and passion for science played a major role in the development of the Bachelor of Science in Pharmaceutical Sciences program. He was a demanding teacher, but always mindful of the students’ struggle to master difficult material and spent countless hours mentoring and advising them.”
An advocate of the Quantitative Analysis Lab Techniques course, Fetterman pushed his students to the brink, said former student now lab instructor Nick Lemister. “I am a better person for having known Dr. Fetterman,” Lemister said. “My only regret is that when I have to teach my students the material Dr. Fetterman taught me, they won’t get the chance to know him.”
In memory of Fetterman’s skills and compassion as a teacher, the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences endowed a scholarship in his name.
Fetterman’s nephew, Kyle Held, also paid tribute to his uncle’s contributions as a teacher, confidant and friend.
“If you knew him at all, you knew him entirely because he shared himself openly with everyone,” Held said. “In many ways, this garden dedicates itself to the memory of my uncle because it pursues life with honesty and vigor and in the exultation of Jesus Christ our Lord as the man did himself.”
Fetterman was an Eagle Scout, a Scout Master and a deacon in the Graves Memorial Presbyterian Church in Clinton. He is survived by his wife Joni Fay Watts Fetterman, daughter Charlotte E. Fetterman, son Lewis M. Fetterman III, parents Lewis and Annabelle Fetterman and sister Molly Fetterman Held.
Photo Copy: Lewis M. Fetterman, Sr. speaks at the dedication of Campbell University’s Lewis M. Fetterman, Jr. Memorial Garden. (Photo by Bennett Scarborough)