Entrepreneur David McCune sculpted art and friendships to make Fayetteville a better place
In his 68 years, sculptor, author, businessman and entrepreneur David McCune left his mark on Fayetteville and elsewhere through his art, his hard work, his wit, his philanthropy and his many friendships.
McCune’s early work adorned sports cars in the 1970s — he made and sold metal louvers by mail order for their rear windows. Today McCune’s artwork is displayed in homes, businesses and public spaces around the city, around the state, and, he said in 2021, around the world.
Methodist University’s art gallery, which became Fayetteville’s de facto art museum after the Fayetteville Museum of Art shut down, bears his name.
McCune unexpectedly died of a heart attack on Sunday at home in St. Marys, Georgia, said his son, David McCune Jr. The senior McCune retired in Georgia several years ago after the sale of McCune Technology-Fayetteville Steel.
“He went peacefully,” David McCune Jr. said.
Numerous friends were posting to his Facebook page how much they will miss him.
The funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. Oct. 15 at Seaside United Methodist Church, 1300 Seaside Road SW, Sunset Beach. Donations in his memory may be sent to Riverside Ranch, www.riversideranch.org, 221 Clark Pond Road, Clayton, NC 27527.
A young inventor who flew mice on model rockets
David McCune Sr. was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He came to Fayetteville with his family when his chemical engineer father got a job at DuPont’s then-new factory, which opened in 1971, the younger McCune said. He graduated from Terry Sanford High School and taught himself how to work with metal, his son said.
McCune’s biography on Amazon.com, where he has seven books published, says that when McCune was a boy, he “was always building or inventing some kind of new gadget.” This included flying model rockets with mice in them.
In the ensuing decades, according to David McCune Jr. and news clippings:
In 1974, 20-year-old McCune designed, made, marketed and sold rear window louvers to owners of the Datsun 240Z and Bricklin sports cars who were eager to add panache to their whips along with shade to keep the interiors cool. His apartment was his factory.
In 1985, when McCune was 30, McCune Technology-Fayetteville Steel metal fabrication became the first tenant in Cumberland County’s then-new industrial park on Tom Starling Road. The company moved its operations from across town and McCune announced it would expand from 12 employees to 24. The company cut and manufactured steel parts and equipment for businesses and Fort Bragg.
In the 1990s, McCune was named Cumberland County’s entrepreneur of the year, had an unsuccessful run for the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners, and was among a group of investors who bought and rehabbed the Prince Charles Hotel downtown. Further, McCune’s company was the subcontractor that fabricated and built Fayetteville’s “Ghost Tower,” a 35-foot-tall sculpture along the Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway that marks the location of the old Fayetteville Arsenal.
Into the 21st century, McCune made more public art and other sculptures. He built a social media following for his dog, Rufus. He wrote novels and books about his life and Rufus. And in 2010, Methodist University opened the David McCune International Art Gallery.
In addition to showcasing Methodist’s art students, the art gallery has brought to Fayetteville the works of Rembrandt, Rodin, Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso, the university’s website says. David McCune Jr. said his father had developed a relationship with Methodist University because he took classes there when he was in his 30s.
Finally, McCune Technology was sold in 2015 and McCune retired.
A modern-day Renaissance man who cultivated friendships
Downtown businesswoman Molly Arnold and Fayetteville Technical Community College President Larry Keen said on Tuesday they treasure their friendships with McCune.
He used to live in a downtown townhouse, Arnold said, and frequented her Rude Awakening coffee shop. Her shop is one of the businesses that helped bring life back to Fayetteville’s then-struggling downtown.
“We met about when Rude opened, because — you know he’s always been interested in downtown, sat on a lot of boards and commissions.
“And in the early years, when I was the night shift, I didn’t so much have customers as I had some people that would come in just to have a cup of coffee and talk, right? So David tended — tended to be one of those people.”
Arnold found him intelligent and well-read, she said.
“So there’s a myriad of topics to try to tackle, and problems to try to solve,” she said, laughing at the memories.
They didn’t agree politically, as Arnold swung left and McCune to the right. But they didn’t let their differences foul up their friendship, she said.
Now, one of McCune’s metal sculptures, Umbrella Man, stands in the corner of Rude Awakening’s courtyard. He also made signs for Arnold’s shop and designed and built a stand for her granita Italian ice machine.
“He took measurements, and I’m telling you, it fit to a T” in the confined space behind the counter, she said.
McCune served on the Board of Trustees at Fayetteville Tech from 2008 to 2016. Keen, the Fayetteville Tech president, said he knew McCune long before then from their work together on Cumberland County Workforce Development Board.
“Some people might call him a modern-day Renaissance man, in that he always looked for new opportunity and new horizons and new relationships,” Keen said. He always had what Keen called “a creative spark.”
This manifested in 2012 when Fayetteville Tech celebrated its 50th anniversary. McCune built a sculpture to mark the school’s history. Fifty steel pipes, some short, some long, symbolize the school's growth over the years. It’s in front of the Tony Rand Student Center.
In retirement, McCune continued to create.
In 2021 he posted on Facebook photos of himself in his garage as he was using a machine called an English wheel to form a piece of metal for a piece of art.
Less than a month ago, on Sept. 11, the town of Sunset Beach on the North Carolina coast unveiled a monument that McCune made in memory of the terror attacks of September 2001.
David McCune Sr. is survived by his son, David McCune Jr., daughter Sarah Valentine and her husband, two grandchildren, his brother Robert McCune and Robert’s wife, and his former wife Sonya.
Senior North Carolina reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Businessman and artist David McCune of Fayetteville has died
