“Back in his home state of North Carolina to speak on foreign policy, TV Newsman Edward R. Murrow was button holed in Charlotte by a reporter: When and why had Murrow changed his name from Egbert to Edward?
“Caught squarely, ex-Logger Murrow grinned and replied: ‘I did that when I was 13 or 14 years old and firing a donkey engine in timber territory. I thought Egbert was hardly the name for the job.’ ”
— From Time magazine, January 30, 1956
According to historylink.org, the donkey engine, a single-cylinder steam engine invented in 1881, revolutionized the logging industry by pulling loads that had previously required ox teams.
In 1930, Murrow was president of the National Federation of Students. Speaker of Carolina’s Phi Society John Lang had formed the North Carolina Federation of Students. The two went on a speaking tour of NC college campuses together. Lang would go on to be an assistant to two NC congressmen before becoming one of the highest ranking, non-appointed civilian employees of the Pentagon. He later served as NC’s first Secretary for Veterans Affairs and ended his career at East Carolina University.