By Jim Lisk, Editor
Thursday, July 31, 2008 — Albemarle and Stanly County have lost one of its finest citizens, a true humanitarian ... Dr. John Murray.
Murray succumbed on Wednesday morning at Carolinas Medical Center - Northeast in Concord. He was 67.
Murray began his medical practice in Albemarle in 1986, following 10 years of service in Jackson, Miss., where he also served as an assistant professor of otolaryngology at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine.
After retiring in 1997, Murray was instrumental in the formation of the Community Care Clinic (CCC), which provides free medical service to those who otherwise would go without. He served as chairman and medical director of the CCC for its first five years of service.
In his retirement, Murray also joined other physicians in providing free physicals each May at Stanly Regional to student athletes from Stanly County schools.
In addition, Murray was also a director on the Stanly Regional Medical Center Foundation Board, serving at various times as chairman and finance chairman.
For all his community support efforts to that point in time, Murray was the 2003 Citizen of the Year as named by the Stanly County Chamber of Commerce.
True to his humanitarian call, Murray continued to be active in the community until his sudden death.
As a lover of history, Murray was active with the Stanly County Museum in Albemarle and just last year was a key member of the steering committee for Albe-marle’s successful Sesqui-centennial.
A native of Charleston, W. Va., Murray received an undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University and a medical degree from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. After a year in a surgery internship at Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, he returned to St. Louis to enter a surgery residency.
In 1968, Murray joined the U.S. Army and served at the Fort Leavenworth Army Hospital before spending a year in the Fourth Infantry Division in South Vietnam.
In 1974, he completed his residency in otolaryngology at Washington University School of Medicine and spent the next two years as an assistant professor.
Murray is survived by his wife, Jane, two sons, John Patrick Murray III of Jackson, Miss. and Michael Stephen Murray of Dallas, Texas, and five grandchildren.
