Calvert McGregor Jr.

1943 - 2020

Calvert McGregor, Jr. HILLSBOROUGH, NC - Dr. Calvert McGregor, Jr., 76, of Hillsborough, NC, passed away on May 12, 2020. He was known as "Buck" to his family and friends, and "Dr. Buck" to his students. Buck was born in Columbia, SC, on August 25, 1943. The youngest of the three children of Calvert Chapman McGregor, Sr., and Margaret Elizabeth Hagood McGregor, Buck spent his childhood in Columbia's Shandon neighborhood. He attended kindergarten at Shandon Park, later renamed Emily Douglas Park in honor of "Miss Emmy", his beloved teacher, and Schneider School. When Buck was 11 years old, the family moved from Shandon to a new home on a lake near Lexington, SC. He graduated from Lexington High School (LHS Class of 1961). His activities at LHS included the high school chorus, the American Legion Oratorical Contest, the junior and senior class plays, and proudly sharing the first place prize in physics with his classmate Tom Haygood, for their joint science fair project that went on to compete in the State Science Fair. His senior classmates voted him most intellectual and most likely to succeed. After high school, Buck enrolled at the University of South Carolina (USC), where he graduated with a BS in Mathematics and a cognate in Physics. Upon graduating he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force, through USC's AFROTC program, and immediately entered active duty. While at USC, Buck met Audrey Caroline Shultman, and they were married in Bethune, SC, on July 1, 1967. After being honorably discharged from the Air Force as a captain in 1971, Buck entered graduate school at USC, where he earned the Master of Accountancy degree and passed the CPA Exam in 1973. He began his accounting career with Price Waterhouse & Co, in Columbia. In 1976 the McGregors moved from Columbia to Sumter, SC, where Buck practiced public accounting for seven more years, as a manager and partner with a local public accounting firm. While they were in Sumter, Buck enjoyed being finance chairman of the Lions Club and a deacon in the First Presbyterian Church. In 1983, they moved to Blacksburg, VA, where Buck enrolled in the Ph.D. program at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). In 1985, after completing his course work and while completing his Ph.D. dissertation, they moved back to Columbia, and Buck taught accounting at USC for the next five years. In 1990, he accepted a faculty position in the Martha & Spencer Love School of Business at Elon College (now Elon University) in Elon, NC. He served eight years as chair of the Accounting Department and taught accounting courses in both the undergraduate Accounting program and the MBA Program for 21 years. He retired from full-time teaching in 2011 but continued to teach part-time in Elon's MBA Program for three more years. Buck was a member of Hillsborough Presbyterian Church, where served several terms as an elder. Before retiring he was also an active member of the state CPA associations in South Carolina and North Carolina, and a member of the American Institute of CPAs, the Institute of Management Accountants, and the American Accounting Association. Buck was preceded in death by his parents and his brother George Hagood McGregor. He is survived by his beloved wife Audrey, their son Bob, their granddaughter Patelynn Helena McGregor, his sister Molly McGregor Jones, nieces Margaret Garvin, Catherine Swaim, Sarah McGregor, and Joanne Morton, nephews Ellison Jones, George Jones, and Peter McGregor, cousins, and many other relatives and friends. No public funeral or visitation is currently planned. Donations may be made to Hillsborough Presbyterian Church (PO Box 717, Hillsborough, NC 27278), Elon University (Office of University Advancement, 2600 Campus Box, Elon, NC 27244, and designate the Calvert C. and Margaret H. McGregor Scholarship fund), or Orange Congregations in Mission (OCIM), (300 Millstone Drive, Hillsborough, NC 27278). Memories and condolences may be shared at www.clementsfuneralservice.com. While Buck was in the Air Force, the McGregors lived in Gulfport, Mississippi, Denver, Colorado, Spokane, Washington, and more than two years near Fairbanks, Alaska. On a clear day, Buck could actually see Mount McKinley, Denali, from his office window, about 190 miles away. His work included visits to remote sites in the mountains of central Alaska as well as Shemya Island, near the far end of the Aleutian Islands. The McGregors enjoyed traveling and, when they were younger, tent camping. Their travels included many national parks, state parks, and historic sites, all around the country, as well as a vacation in Europe that was a two-week "trip of a lifetime" to Germany and Sweden. They rode trains across Sweden, through the mountains of the Carolinas and Tennessee, the Grand Canyon Railway in Arizona, and a rail excursion from Fairbanks to Denali National Park. They took boat tours of Gothenburg Harbor, Boston Harbor, the Chicago Harbor, under the bridges of Stockholm, and a marvelous ferry ride between Seward and Valdez, including glaciers, icebergs, and whales, in Alaska. They saw both sides of Niagara Falls, spent four days at the Grand Canyon, and discovered Glenwood Springs, Colorado, on their way back home. Among their favorite regular destinations were Colonial Williamsburg and Fort Lewis Lodge, in Virginia, where they often enjoyed meeting some of their oldest and dearest friends, Libby and Rusty Ball. Buck and Audrey pitched their tent under giant redwoods in California, on snow-covered ground in Rocky Mountain National Park, beside an oil well near Wichita Falls, Texas, on mountains and beaches of the Carolinas, beside the Chena River in Alaska, the Mississippi River in Arkansas, and the Pearl River in Mississippi, and among incredible rock formations in eastern Utah. Buck said the aroma of bacon frying on the Coleman stove on a foggy, frosty morning, is an unforgettable experience everyone should have. Buck had many hobbies and interests. Some of his favorites included classical and sacred music, studying science and nature, sky watching and birdwatching, amateur photography, and making things out of wood. He was an avid reader with particular interests in poetry, young people's literature, and personality and character studies. He believed in and taught the importance of ethical integrity. As a boy, he was a Cub Scout and later an Explorer Scout. He never forgot the Boy Scout Law and took it to heart: A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. While he taught codes of professional ethics for accountants, he thought the Boy Scout Law was one of the most important codes of ethics he ever learned. The family is being assisted by Clements Funeral & Cremation Services, Inc. in Hillsborough.