Wayne Eads

1950 -

Wayne Eads
Image source: 1969 Buccaneer, page 388

A native of Roseboro, N.C., Wayne Eads graduated from ECU in 1971, having distinguished himself as a student-journalist contributing to the Fountainhead from its inaugural issue, September 9, 1969, forward. Eads’ work with the paper, previously known as the East Carolinian, climaxed in the summer of 1970 when he was editor-in-chief. Thereafter, he continued as managing editor. After ECU, Eads completed his law degree at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1974. Eads has since founded a law firm, with offices in Raleigh and Graham, N.C., specializing in all areas of criminal law. Eads is a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Bar Association, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers, the North Carolina Bar Association, and the Wake County Academy of Trial Lawyers.

At ECU, Eads was active in the SGA, as a legislator and as speaker of the legislature. He was also a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the national history scholarship society, and Alpha Phi Gama, the national journalism society. As a student journalist, Eads wrote in support of what became the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, ratified in1971, giving the right to vote to those eighteen and older. Eads was a proponent of participation in student government, noting that for democracy to be authentic, active involvement was necessary. In the fall of 1969, Eads initiated a series in the Fountainhead, “The Role of a University,” to which President Leo W. Jenkins later contributed, stimulating reflection and commentary on the new status East Carolina had achieved as a regional university. In the first column of the series, Eads affirmed in the Fountainhead that the Bill of Rights’ recognition of freedom of speech applied to university students.

Eads’ articles also addressed pressing matters of the day such as the draft requirement. He outlined protocol for compliance with draft regulations as well as procedures that might be followed by those seeking to avoid the draft. Eads also authored a two-page spread on “pop festivals,” describing in detail the recent sensation, Woodstock Music Festival, held August 15-18, 1969, in upstate New York.

In August 1970, Eads, as editor-in-chief, had the two-page essay, “‘In loco parentis’ – death of an age-old concept,” published, suggesting that the days when teachers and professors served as parental surrogates vis-à-vis their students were over. Most sensationally, however, Eads ran an editorial in July advocating changes in the drug laws, especially in relation to marijuana, asserting that they were archaic, hypocritical, and unnecessary.

While a third-year law student at Chapel Hill, Eads was arrested for possession of marijuana in a statewide SBI raid described at the time as the largest ever in North Carolina history. In the years that followed, Eads devoted much of his work as an attorney to defending those arrested for drug offenses, continuing the line of thought and action sketched out earlier in the Fountainhead‘s call for drug law revision.

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Citation Information

Title: Wayne Eads
Author: John A. Tucker, PhD
Date of Publication: 6/21/2019

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