Revisit late novelist and UNC grad John Ehle, who founded some of NC's most innovative schools Posted Apr 3, 2018 What if you turned over the keys to state government to an innovative novelist/intellectual and told him he had a year to come up with some original ideas for the state? That is what Gov. Terry Sanford did in 1962, when he hired John Ehle as his special assistant and idea man. The result was a burst of creative energy that North Carolina state government had not seen before. (Raleigh News & Observer)