Wendell Murphy

Wendell H. Murphy is a former North Carolina farmer, Democratic politician, and namesake of the Wendell H. Murphy Football Center.

Wendell H. Murphy was born in Rose Hill, North Carolina. In 1960, Murphy received a B.S. in agriculture from North Carolina State University. After graduating from college, Murphy became an agriculture teacher, but soon Wendell and his dad, Holmes Murphy, opened a feeding manufacturing operation. The operation started in 1964 with area farmers in open lots. By 1979, Wendell and Holmes Murphy had started sow and farrowing operations as well. The business is now known as Murphy Family Ventures and is a part of the Smithfield Foods operation.

In 1983, Murphy was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives as a Democrat. He represented North Carolina's tenth district until 1988. He was then elected to the North Carolina Senate where he served until 1992. During this time, Murphy received a lot of attention for his work in politics including the Tar Heel of the Week Award by The News & Observer in May 1987 and the Order of the Long Leaf Pine in 1988. Murphy was later profiled by the News and Observer in their Pulitzer prize-winning "Boss Hog" series. In these investigative pieces, the N&O illustrated the rise of the hog industry in North Carolina with the help of politicians, such as Murphy.

Critics of Murphy claim that the laws he passed helped to enable unsustainable growth in the hog industry, which later caused massive water pollution resulting in fish kills throughout eastern North Carolina. Proponents on the other hand claim that his legislation helped to expand the industry at a time when it was needed to offset the job losses caused by the decline of tobacco farming.

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