William Helms: “North Carolina lost a very special, very valuable and very distinguished leader this past April. He was known…”

“North Carolina lost a very special, very valuable and very distinguished leader this past April. He was known affectionately and respectfully across our State, and far beyond in every direction, simply as Mel Broughton. His full name was J. Melville Broughton, Jr., but you seldom heard all of that name. Mel Broughton, by all measurements, was one of those nature's noblemen who comes along only once in a while. Though his family was one of North Carolina's most distinguished, Mel Broughton was one of the least pretentious men I have ever known. His grandfather was North Carolina's Governor during the World War II years, 1941 to 1944. And in November 1948, former Governor Broughton was elected to the U.S. Senate. But fate was to allow Senator Broughton to serve in the U.S. Senate only a few months, because he had been sworn in as a Senator shortly after his having been elected in November 1948 but he died of a heart attack the following March.”