Lucie Wing, civic leader, dies at 80 Submitted by N.O.V.A. September 2006 Times Picayune 09-02-2006 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Lucie Lee Abramson Wing, who was prominent in politics and public television in Durham, N.C., died Sunday of ovarian cancer in Durham. She was 80. Mrs. Wing was born in New Orleans, and although she moved to Durham in 1965, she never lost her devotion to the her native city and her friends here. She also continued to express the musical talents that first manifested themselves here. Mrs. Wing graduated from Isidore Newman School and Newcomb College. She received a master's degree in psychology from Tulane University, where she worked as research associate to the Tulane dean of Arts and Sciences from 1948 to 1961. In Durham, she founded Friends of University Network Television, WUNC-TV, in 1971, and was its president until 1976. She worked in North Carolina state government for 16 years, serving as an arts and communications policy adviser to Gov. Jim Hunt from 1977 to 1979, and executive director of the North Carolina Agency for Public Telecommunications from 1979 to 1993. She created OPEN/net, a statewide satellite and cable television network with unscreened citizen call-ins, which won the Ford Foundation and Harvard-Kennedy School of Government Award for Innovations in Sate and Local Government. She also received the Governor's Award of Excellence and was inducted into the Order of the Longleaf Pine. In 1993 she founded Responsive Media Inc., and produced the Call-In Kids radio program from 1996 to 1999. She later created for television Smart Start Kids, which won a regional Emmy award in 2004. She was president of Durham County Democratic Women from 1968 to 1972, and was co-chair of Terry Sanford's 1972 presidential campaign and a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. She wrote music and lyrics throughout her adult life. Musical theater credits include Aristophanes' "The Birds" for Tulane University Theater in 1954, LePetit Theatre du Vieux Carré in 1955 and the University of California, Riverside, in 1971; and "Scandalous Mrs. Jack" for Raleigh Little Theater in 1971. One of her songs, "Pushing Forty," was recorded by Pearl Bailey. Another, "An Older Man is Like an Elegant Wine," was recorded by Carol Sloane and Nancy Wilson. She also composed the theme songs for Call-In Kids and Smart Start Kids. Another song, "We're the Ones from New Orleyuns," was based on her devotion to several New Orleans girlfriends, her husband, Cliff W. Wing Jr., a professor emeritus in psychology at Duke University, said Friday. He said his wife, a pianist, played the vibraphone for servicemen at a USO club in New Orleans during WWII. She was influenced musically early in life by jazz and blues, and by her uncle by marriage, Isidore Newman, a grandson of the founder of the high school. Her uncle once introduced her to vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, who gave her a few musical pointers. Wing, a naval officer in the war, met his wife after the war at Tulane University. "I'd been a bachelor for quite a while," Wing said. "I'd been through the wars in Europe and the Pacific. New Orleans was such a lovely city for a farm boy from the Midwest. I fell in love with the city and with Lucie Lee. She was absolutely grand." In addition to her husband, survivors include two sons, Steve and Scott Wing, and four grandchildren. A celebration of Mrs. Wing's life will be held Sept. 17 at the American Tobacco Historic District in Durham.