By Mike London
Salisbury Post
LELAND — Bob Boyd scored a lot of buckets and struck out a lot of people for the Hornets of Mount Ulla School in the 1950s.
Beyond what he did as an athlete, Boyd may have been Rowan County’s greatest Future Farmer of America of all-time.
Boyd’s remarkable life ended recently when he died in Wilmington at 86. A celebration of his life is planned in Wallace this Friday.
Boyd was born in 1939. When he was a 14-year-old freshman at Mount Ulla — he was known as Bobby Boyd then — he had to be the man of the house and he and his mother had their hands full managing a dairy farm near Mooresville.
The Boyds owned 89 cows. There was no shortage of good milk to sell and there was a market for it, but the Boyds were struggling because they couldn’t grow enough grain and fodder on their farm to feed all the cattle, so they had to buy it, and feed costs were killing them. It looked like the bank might soon own the farm.
With his back to the wall, Bobby became a smart businessman early in life. The family farm became self-sufficient after he made the hard decision to cull the big herd down to 46. Now the Boyds could feed their cattle with the grain they grew and the silage they produced. Feed costs dwindled to near zero, and the Boyds thrived.
Boyd’s school days started at 5 a.m., with his mother gently shaking the exhausted boy awake. Bobby and a hired hand milked the cows. Boyd hauled the milk from his mother’s farm — and his grandmother’s farm — to the Mooresville Creamery. Then he reported to school.
Boyd frequently was late for his morning classes, but his teachers understood. He may have possessed the brightest mind in the school. He still made all A’s. It is said that in the eighth grade he made 34 A-pluses.
The farm became successful enough by the time he graduated that Boyd was able to send his sister to college, which was no small thing in those days.
Future Farmers of America was a huge thing, and Rowan County held a major banquet, gave speeches and awards and honored a high school farmer of the year. President of the Mount Ulla FFA and secretary of the North Carolina FFA, Boyd was the easy choice for Farmer of the Year. He got a nice cup for that, plus gift certificates and a little prize money. Boyd was a local success story. His speech was taped and played on a Salisbury radio station the next day.
He managed to play baseball and basketball between winning all the livestock shows, milking sessions and back-breaking farm chores.
He was very good in baseball, as he and Franklin “Ironman” Meadows formed a terrific 1-2 punch on the mound for Mount Ulla.
In basketball, Boyd had to wait his turn to shine behind several outstanding players, but he filled it up as a junior and senior for coach Oscar Stradley.
He averaged 17.7 points as a junior. He scored more than 20 eight times in an 18-game season, with a high of 29 against Granite Quarry.
As a senior, he was Rowan County’s highest scorer. He had a 521-point season in 23 games and averaged 22.7 points. He scored more than 30 four times in the 1956-57 season, with a high of 33 against rival Cleveland.
Mount Ulla (17-6) tied for first in the Rowan County League with a 9-1 record. The loss was to Rockwell when Rockwell held Boyd to a season-low six points, but Boyd scored 26 when Mount Ulla routed the Rockets in the rematch.
Boyd scored 20 when Mount Ulla beat Woodleaf 49-45 in the championship game of the Rowan County League Tournament.
Mount Ulla lost 59-56 to Richfield in the district playoffs in Boyd’s last high school game. He scored 15.
Boyd attended college at Appalachian State and Catawba. He married a girl from Faith (Claudette Williams). They had three children.
Boyd began a teaching career in math and science at Odell School in northwest Cabarrus County.
Boyd went to work at Catawba in 1967 and served as dean of admissions, and then dean of students. In 1971, he moved to Raleigh and began a long career with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
In 1976, Boyd became a farmer again after buying 156 acres near Bunn. He moved his family into a new home there in 1977. He built a working farm (beef cattle) while commuting to Raleigh for his work with the DPI.
He sold the farm in 1999 and moved to the golf community of River Landing in Wallace. Then golf became his passion. He played five days a week and served on the North Carolina Golf Panel that rated courses across the state.
In 2019, Boyd moved to Magnolia Greens, a golf community in Leland, but that was also the year when his health began to decline.
Boyd is survived by his second wife, Maria, and by his three children, seven grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
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