News

HHS alumni induct three to Hall of Fame

Tom and Fran Shipman were inducted into the HHS Hall of Fame on Oct. 15.

By Bill Moss, Published: November 11, 2016

Tom Shipman said surprise was his main reaction when he learned he had been inducted into the Hendersonville High School Hall of Fame.

“I thought, ‘Who, me? What did I do?’” he said.
Shipman and his wife, Fran Page Shipman, were honored for their service in the food business and their longtime support of HHS, which is a one-block walk north of the dining facilities the couple own.
Also inducted was Richard W. Pearce, a 1941 graduate, U.S. Navy veteran and former president of Methodist University in Fayetteville. Pearce died on Sept. 15 at his home in Deland, Fla.
The 2016 Hall of Fame class was honored during HHS’s homecoming on Oct. 15 in the high school auditorium. Grace Gaillard presented the Shipman honor and Nancy Bayless presented the recognition to the Pearce family.
“To be a couple and to go in there, not only is it an honor but it’s a blessing,” Shipman said.
Tommy and Fran have known one another all their lives.
“We were in preschool together, Sunday School, Sonbeam, the whole nine yards,” he said. “She used to chase me down the hall and hit me on the head with a lunchbox. I guess it finally sunk in.”
The couple have always supported HHS through their catering and dining business at the Chariot and The Cedars.
“Tom and Fran for many years have actively continued to support HHS by feeding sports teams and alumni and helping with hundreds of events that we have had here at the school over the last three decades,” the Hall of Fame committee said. The couple’s two daughters are also graduates of HHS.
After graduating from HHS in 1969, Fran and Tom married in 1972. Fran worked as special education teacher at HHS with Skip Gibson before joining her husband in the food business.
Tom’s father, the longtime Hendersonville entrepreneur and restaurateur Clifton Shipman, owned Clifton’s Cafeteria (now the Chariot), the Hastee Tastee, the Smokehouse, the Chicken Shack and the Hitchin’ Kitchen and the Minit Carwash, now an Autobell.
“He started me out in the carwash,” Shipman said. “I said ‘I’d much rather be in the food business.’”
He talked his father into starting the Chariot, then in the old Shipman Motor Co. (and Folsom Motor Co.) space on Sixth Avenue. A German man working for his father drew pictures as a hobby, usually of knights and castles. “He made this huge poster of a Chariot,” Shipman said. “Dad said we’ll hang that up and call it the Chariot.”
Pearce, the other inductee, enrolled in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after he was discharged from the Navy. He transferred to Stetson University, where he earned history and law degrees and masters degree.
After practicing law, Pearson held administrative positions at Stetson and Bethune-Cookman in Florida before returning to North Carolina.
He served as president of Methodist University from 1973 until 1983.