Charles Routledge Eilber

Charles R. “Chuck” Eilber, founding director of North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, innovative teacher, and devoted family man, passed away peacefully at Croasdaile Village on October 8, 2025, at the age of 100.

Born in Detroit in 1925, Chuck Eilber grew up over the family’s confectionary store, son of Merner and Maida Eilber of Canada. He and his younger brother Douglas were known to get into mischief around the store and, in particular, to read all the comic books before they were sold. Chuck was an entrepreneurial teen who earned the rank of eagle scout, and in the depths of the Great Depression, he advanced from running a paper route to becoming a newspaper distributor, allowing him to purchase a car with cash at the tender age of 16. Attending Wilson high school in Detroit, he flirted with his bright young desk mate Carol Brown in algebra class. They dated throughout college and were married in 1948.

During World War Two he was chosen for officers’ training in the U.S. Navy and ultimately achieved the rank of Ensign, serving in the Far East with his brother. Upon his return, he joined Carol at Michigan State University, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in forestry. Chuck then started his career as a math teacher and assistant principal at Kimball High School in Royal Oak, Michigan.

In the mid-1950s, by then married to Carol and father to their daughters Diane and Janet, Chuck was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to be an exchange teacher in Rhyl, Wales. The family traveled via the S. S. United States to live in the seaside town of Prestatyn for a year. During their time abroad, the Eilbers were warmly welcomed into the community, so much so that the two young daughters returned home with Welsh accents. Chuck and Carol spent time traveling around Europe at the end of that year, and another daughter, Julie, was born soon after in 1957. In his spare time, Chuck single-handedly renovated and expanded the family’s house in Southfield, Michigan, enjoyed listening to the Detroit Tigers on the radio, and threw “popcorn parties” for his daughters when Carol was out singing with her Madrigal group.

In the early 1960s, Chuck was one of the math and science teachers funded by the government to receive further training at the start of the Cold War “space race” between the U.S. and the USSR. The family spent a year in Marblehead, Massachusetts while he earned his master’s degree in education from Harvard.

Then he and Carol were recruited to join the faculty of a new private boarding school for students gifted in the performing and visual arts, now the prestigious Interlochen Center for the Arts in rural northern Michigan. During his decade at Interlochen, Chuck started as head of the math department and ultimately became director of the school. A well-liked teacher and respected administrator, his artistic students later thanked him for making math accessible and enjoyable via the innovative teaching methods he had developed.

He later worked in admissions at University of Northern Michigan and with at-risk students at a public school outside of Madison, Wisconsin, before being recruited by Senator Terry Sanford to head the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in 1979.

Chuck worked closely with Gov. James B. Hunt to fundraise for and renovate Watts Hospital in Durham to house the school. He then led the development and crucial early years of this innovative concept for a public boarding high school focused on science and math education. The school welcomed students from all parts of North Carolina, boys and girls in equal number, many of whom have since become distinguished alumni in tech, business, education, and the arts.

Known for his skillful leadership abilities, in the late 80s the Durham County Commission appointed Chuck to be chairman of the Mergers Issues Task Force, regarding the controversial combining of the city and county school districts. It was “one of the most difficult and sensitive issues in Durham’s history” according to an editorial written about Chuck in the Durham Morning Herald. “That the task force reached consensus and made a report should be attributed in large part to Mr. Eilber’s leadership.” Chuck also served as president of the board of the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science.

After retiring from NCSSM, Chuck spent several years in Washington D.C. at the National Science Foundation, using his expertise to help recruit states to start more public math and science schools throughout the country.

When he and Carol returned to Durham in 1992, they switched gears to purchase and develop land that would eventually become the co-housing community Solterra, which encourages eco-friendly living, where they lived for a decade. Chuck also started TECT, a private educational consulting firm helping to improve curriculum, hiring, and teaching methods at schools.

In retirement, Chuck and Carol moved to the Croasdaile Village community in Durham. After Carol passed away, Chuck married Elaine Scagnelli, a fellow retired educator living at Croasdaile, with whom he shared a happy fourteen years, including several trips abroad and many warm gatherings of their large extended families.

Chuck is survived by his wife Elaine, his daughters Diane Eilber (Gene Medler) of Chapel Hill, N.C., Janet Eilber (John Warren) of New York, N.Y., and Julie Eilber of Boston, MA; grandchildren Jordan Rosado (John Kees Frelinger), Keith Rosado, Madeline Warren (Michael Everett), Eve Warren (Sean Hansen), and Charles Begle; and one great-granddaughter, Rosemary Everett.