Mellicent Stalder Adams, the widow of Daily Record founder Hoover Adams, died Sunday, Oct. 13, 2019, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where she was hospitalized following a visit there earlier this month. She was 96.
The family will receive visitors from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16, at Skinner & Smith Funeral Home in Dunn.
A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 17 at Gospel Tabernacle with the Rev. Randy Hill officiating. Burial will follow in the Greenwood Cemetery in Dunn.
Born in Richardson County, Nebraska, on Jan. 9, 1923, to the late Ralph and Mae Stalder, Mellicent met her future husband in Denver, Colorado, where she was working a summer job at a department store. Dunn native Hoover Adams, then an Army lieutenant, was temporarily stationed in Denver following his service as an aide to Gen. William C. Lee in London.
They married in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 194
5 and started The Daily Record in Dunn five years later. In addition to serving The Daily Record as its bookkeeper and co-founder, Mellicent Adams also served as a teacher at Hebron High School in Hebron, Nebraska, and later at Plain View School in Sampson County.
In conjunction with their 50th wedding anniversary in 1995, both Hoover and Mellicent Adams were awarded the Order of the Longleaf Pine, the state’s highest civilian award, for their countless contributions to the state of North Carolina.
Mellicent Adams served on the North Carolina Arts Council under the appointment of former Gov. Jim Hunt. She also served on the Harnett County Arts Council and was a founding member of Ye Olde Town Arts Club in Dunn. She was the 2001 Dunn Woman of the Year and, with her husband, had traveled the world meeting dignitaries, including Margaret Thatcher and President Jimmy Carter.
She was a past president of the Junior Woman’s Club of Dunn and a member of the Woman’s Club. She was a member of Hood Memorial Christian Church where she was a Sunday school teacher and deacon. She later joined Gospel Tabernacle.
Mrs. Adams is survived by three children: Dunn attorney Brent Adams and wife, Susan; Maere Kay Lashmit and husband, Rick; and former Daily Record publisher Bart Adams and wife Regina; her brother, Merle Stalder of Kansas City, Missouri; grandchildren, Clay Adams, Marilyn Kholobayev and husband, Igor Kholobayev; Jacob Adams and wife, Leigh Anne; Lee Lashmit and wife, Jesse; Anna Barbara Feagin and husband, Tony; Kevin Adams and Hayden Adams; and great-grandchildren, Caleb Adams, Raquel Adams, Ansleigh Adams, Emory Lashmit, Charlotte Mae Feagin and Alfie Feagin.
In lieu of flowers, the family is asking for donations to be made in her name to the Hoover and Mellicent Adams Scholarship Fund at Campbell University.
Arrangements are by Skinner & Smith Funeral Home of Dunn.
