Queens University honors Ralph Ketner, who gave school $1 million

Food Lion founder Ralph Ketner. Salisbury Post file photo

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

CHARLOTTE — Queens University of Charlotte honored Food Lion co-founder Ralph Ketner Tuesday night for giving the school $1 million.

Ketner’s gift will help pay to construct the Levine Center, a health and wellness student center planned for the campus. About $100,000 of his donation went for upgrades to a Queens auditorium that now bears his name.

Ketner’s relationship with Queens began last year when the university inducted him into the Carolinas Entrepreneur Hall of Fame, along with Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson and Leon Levin, founder of Family Dollar Stores Inc.

“It was a no-brainer when you look at his remarkable accomplishments,” said Dr. Pamela Davies, university president.

Ketner was such a “delightful and charming and interesting person,” the school invited him to return for another speaking engagement, Davies said.

Later, she and Ketner had lunch together. Ketner was excited about the vision the university had laid out and understood the importance of facility improvements in reaching those goals, Davies said.

Ketner’s gift to Queens — a private, coed, Presbyterian-affiliated university with 2,700 undergraduate and graduate students — was unrestricted.

“The future of the country is obviously in the hands of the young people,” he said.

Ketner has been a longtime supporter of Catawba College. He keeps daily office hours in the building on Catawba's campus named for him and built through his generosity.

Ralph W. Ketner Hall houses the Ketner School of Business, and Ketner Scholarships offered to Catawba students from the immediate area come from his financial support.

At Tuesday’s event, Ketner recounted launching Food Lion with brother Brown Ketner and Wilson “Bill” Smith, the trio he dubbed the "original telemarketers in 1957."

They spent three days and nights going through the Salisbury phone book, tracking down the first 125 investors. An original $50 investment became $1 million over time.

Queens inducted Ketner as an inaugural member of the Carolinas Entrepreneur Hall of Fame.

“I considered it a tremendous honor,” he said.

Contact reporter Emily Ford at 704-797-4264.