and aerospace Sam Beddingfield (1933–2012), test pilot and NASA employee (Clayton) Curtis Brown (born 1956), former NASA astronaut and United States Air Force (USAF) colonel (Elizabethtown) Myrtle Cagle (1925–2019), pilot and flight test instructor, one of the Mercury 13 female astronauts group Charles Duke (born 1935), Apollo 16 astronaut; tenth and youngest person to walk on moon (Charlotte) Willie H. Fuller (1919–1995), combat fighter pilot and combat flight instructor with the 332d Expeditionary Operations Group 99th Pursuit Squadron, best known as the Tuskegee Airmen or "Red Tails" (Tarboro) Viola Gentry (1894–1988), aviator, set the first non-refueling endurance record for women (Rockingham) Caleb V. Haynes (1895–1966), USAF major general, air pioneer (Surry County) Susan Helms (born 1958), USAF lieutenant general and NASA astronaut (Charlotte) William S. McArthur (born 1951), United States Army colonel, test pilot, and NASA astronaut (Laurinburg) George Preddy (1919–1944), USAF fighter ace (Greensboro) Edward F. Rector (1916–2001), USAF fighter ace, member of the Flying Tigers (Marshall) Ida Van Smith (1917–2003), pilot and flight instructor (Lumberton) William E. Thornton (1929–2021), NASA astronaut (Faison) Earl P. Yates (1923–2021), rear admiral in the United States Navy and United States Naval Aviator (Winston-Salem) Religious leaders Ernest Angley (1921–2021), Christian evangelist and pastor of Grace Cathedral (Gastonia) Leonard Bolick, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and served as the bishop of the North Carolina Evangelical Lutheran Synod from 1997 to 2015 (Lenoir) Casey Cole, American Franciscan friar, Catholic priest, writer, and blogger (Cary) Billy Graham (1918–2018), Christian evangelist and unofficial religious advisor to U.S. Presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Bill Clinton (Charlotte) Franklin Graham (born 1952), Christian evangelist and missionary (Asheville) Anne Graham Lotz (born 1948), Christian evangelist and daughter of Billy Graham (Montreat) James A. Forbes (born 1935), minister (Raleigh) Paul Henkel (1754–1825), itinerant evangelist for the Lutheran Church (Rowan County) John P. Kee (born 1962), gospel singer and pastor (Durham) Owen L. W. Smith (1851–1926), minister and diplomat of the United States (Sampson County) Ben Witherington III (born 1951), New Testament scholar (High Point) Miscellaneous Louis H. Asbury (1877–1975), architect, many works listed on U.S. National Register of Historic Places (Charlotte) John David Roy Atchison (1954–2007), Assistant US Attorney and children's sports coach, committed suicide in prison after being charged with soliciting sex from a 5-year-old girl (Chapel Hill) Penelope Barker (1728–1796), activist in the American Revolution, helped organize the boycott of British goods in 1774 known as