Habitat memorial house honors DKE fraternity president

BY TRISTAN LONG

chh@heraldsun.com; 419-6654

CHAPEL HILL -- Words of celebration, honor and hope saturated an infant construction site on Saturday as Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity brothers and alumni, family members and friends gathered to break ground on the Courtland Benjamin Smith Memorial House in honor of Smith, the late UNC student and DKE president, who was killed in August.

"We see this project as an important opportunity for the DKE House to contribute meaningfully to the community and give the chapter, parents and alumni a constructive way to cope with the enormous loss we suffered after Courtland's death last August," said incoming DKE President Davis Willingham. "His vibrant personality touched everyone at the house. ...This is an incredible way to honor Courtland's memory."

Smith's father, Pharr Smith, said the Habitat for Humanity project would honor his son's life and help fill in the void that he and his family feels.

"We are all gathered here today to reassemble our missing piece of the pot," he said. "We are celebrating a life. ... [This house] captures the many good parts of Courtland Smith."

Smith and his wife, Susan, traveled from their home in Houston for the ceremony.

The house, located at 104 Gracie Circle in Chapel Hill, will be the home of UNC employees Lion and Zar Ree Wei and their six children.

Willingham said Courtland Smith "would have been the first one on the construction site, the first one to reach out to the Wei family and their kids and the first one to get stuck on the roof and need the fire department to rescue him."

DKE has raised $65,000 in six weeks for the project, just short of its $75,000 goal. Bank of America donated $25,000 to the construction, Willingham said.

Willingham said that rapid fundraising was "a testament to the strength of the [DKE] house."

The one-story, five-bedroom home will be built by volunteers from DKE, local Bank of America employees and others under the guidance of the Habitat for Humanity of Orange County.

The 16-week construction will begin sometime this spring, Willingham said.

Smith's father also said he was "relieved" that a Randolph County Superior Court judge had ruled on Friday that the Archdale police dash-cam videos surrounding Smith's death be permanently sealed.

"[The sealed videos] allows us to concentrate on the home," Smith's father said. "We are celebrating a life rather than mourning a life."

Smith, 21, was shot and killed by Archdale police on Aug. 23, 2009. He had been stopped by the police officer on Interstate 85 after Smith called 911 and told the emergency operator he was drinking, driving fast and wielding a gun. He asked the dispatcher to send a law enforcement officer to "drive with him."