This is the final story in a five-week series on the life and career of outgoing North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.
RALEIGH — As the end of Dale Folwell’s run as a public servant inches closer, the state treasurer still has the citizens of his state and country on his mind.
“Too often, people talk about this as the most important election of our lifetime,” said Folwell, “and they talk about that in terms of politics. We need to start thinking about that in terms of mathematics. … (there are) people who are making billions of dollars in this country keeping us divided.
“The world is coming at us in a way that we never anticipated and at a speed we never anticipated, and we’ve got some huge mathematical challenges that we’re going to have to overcome. And I say all that to you because, at the end of the day, whether it’s COVID, whether it’s the great financial crisis, no matter what it is, it’s normally low-income and fixed-income people who get hurt the worst.
“I’m sure that there are a lot of people in power on the Republican and Democrat side who don’t want to see the problems fixed because then they can’t make money on them. They don’t want the problems fixed because if the problem is fixed, what do they have to complain about or raise money on?”
Fowlell said he believes confidence in government is at an all-time low, and that is “why the majority of people in this country don’t want any one of the individuals who are running for president.”
While much of Folwell’s life has been about his work, nothing has been more important to him than his family, including his wife of 36 years, Synthia.
“She’s an amazing spouse and mother and friend, and I’ll describe her this way: There’s some things in life that are so beautiful they don’t have to draw any attention to themselves. They just are,” said Folwell. “And that’s what she is.
“You would find a connection anytime she walks into a room. That’s the effect she has on people because she does not draw attention to herself. There are a lot of women who are attractive and there are women who are attracting, and she’s both.”
He also called her “the most beautiful 250-year-old woman you’ve ever met,” referring to her work in Old Salem dressed in period attire. “She’s the reason,” he said, “I work so hard.”
And Folwell’s time spent in Raleigh was about one thing: the work.
“I did not come to Raleigh to create a separate life for myself,” he said. “In nearly 19 years, I’ve not had a kitchen or TV because I don’t want to be comfortable here. I want to work and I want to exercise an hour a day, and then I want to rest.
“And my life, my home, where I want to be comfortable, is in Winston-Salem. Not to come to Raleigh and create a separate life for myself. Which I have not.”
Most people might not realize he and his wife had three children, not two. When asked about his children, Folwell went slightly quiet for a moment.
“Because that’s all I have remaining,” Folwell explained while looking over his shoulder at a picture behind him. “So that’s the third one.”
Folwell did not speak his name but nodded at a picture of a young, blonde-haired boy on a shelf behind his desk. The picture was of his son, Dalton.
Dalton was tragically killed in May 1999 when he was struck by a car while trying to get on the bus to school when a driver passed the stopped school bus. The Folwell family donated their son’s organs, including his liver, which saved the life of 9-year-old Annette Stidham.
The woman who hit and killed Dalton received a misdemeanor charge and 100 hours of community service.
In 2015, when he served in the House of the General Assembly, Folwell spearheaded legislation to change that, with the backing of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth School District. It is now a Class I felony for willfully passing a stopped school bus under North Carolina law. Anyone doing so that results in the striking and/or death of a person is guilty of a Class H felony.
Folwell’s free time, meanwhile, has often been consumed by his love of motorcycles and racing.
“I’ve been racing for 47 years, and earlier in the interview, we talked about some four people,” Folwell said of his love of motorbikes. “Motorcycles gave me a way of life to make a living with my hands, and there’s a lot of things I do at the Treasurer’s Office; there’s a lot of connections between an engine and a motorcycle and running an operation.
“But I digress and not telling you that it’s a motorcyclist who worked with me, showed me examples when I was in a fatherless house of motorcyclists. The people who ride motorcycles, who taught me the ways to operate, respect women, work hard, dress nicely — which I didn’t quite get that one.”
Now Folwell is ready for his next act, away from the bustle of politics.
“I’m going to try my best not to let things get between me and God, to love my wife and family, and ride my motorcycles,” said Folwell. “And I’ll just pair it with what Jamie Dimon recently said, as he’s talking about leaving JP Morgan — that he’s not quite sure what jersey is going to fit him next. And that’s where I am.”
