Harold Martin Lancaster, O.B.E. (born March 24, 1943) is an American politician who is the former President of the North Carolina Community College System and former Chair of the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges. He was also United States Representative from North Carolina from 1987 to 1995. Life and career Lancaster was raised on a tobacco farm in rural Wayne County, North Carolina and spent his childhood working in the fields; he went to the small local school and participated in local church youth activities. In 1957, he served as a Page in the North Carolina House of Representatives and in 1959, as Chief Page. In 1961, Lancaster went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and entered the law school at UNC after his junior year in college as a Law Alumni Scholar, graduating in 1967. After graduating, he joined the United States Navy, serving on active duty as a judge advocate for three years, eighteen months of which were spent on the USS Hancock (CV-19) off the coast of Vietnam. Lancaster continued to serve as a reservist until 1993. After his military service he returned to North Carolina and set up a law practice with a college classmate. In 1977, Governor Jim Hunt appointed him Chairman of the North Carolina Arts Council, a position he held for four years. This led to elective office, first to eight years in the North Carolina House of Representatives and ultimately to the U.S. Congress. In Congress, he served on the Armed Services, Small Business, Agriculture, and Merchant Marine & Fisheries Committees. His major committee was Armed Services. Lancaster also represented the House for six years at the Chemical Weapons Convention negotiations in Geneva. Lancaster was reelected three times without serious difficulty. However, in 1994 he faced a very credible Republican challenger in Walter B. Jones, Jr., a former Democratic state Representative who had recently switched parties. Lancaster's district had absorbed a large amount of the territory once represented by Jones' father, Walter B. Jones, Sr., in the 1990s round of redistricting. The race was initially fairly close until Walter, Jr. circulated a picture of Lancaster jogging with Bill Clinton, whose socially liberal stances (especially on allowing gays in the military) had angered voters in this socially conservative Eastern North Carolina district. In the general election, Jones defeated Lancaster by almost six points—one of many moderate Democrats