BATH — Bath residents and historic preservationists gathered Friday to celebrate one of their own.

Distinguished journalist, editor and a driving force, among many, behind historic preservation in North Carolina’s oldest town, Gene Roberts was awarded one of the state’s highest honors, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.

The award was presented to Roberts by Steve Keen, Gov. Pat McCrory’s eastern office director, at a luncheon held at Swindell’s Cash Store — one of the many restoration projects in which Roberts played a part.

A number of speakers, including Historic Bath Foundation President Surry Everett, architect and Swindell’s Cash Store owner Ken Friedlein, Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons Jr. and N.C. Department of Cultural Resources’ Mike Hill, recognized both Roberts’ illustrious career and his work to preserve the historic buildings of Bath.

Friedlein, a former journalist, spoke of the respect Roberts has garnered in the news industry during his rise from the weekly newspaper he started with his father in Wayne County, to executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer — a position he held for 18 years, during which the paper earned 17 Pulitzer Prizes — and managing editor of the New York Times from 1994 to 1998. In between, Roberts covered John F. Kennedy’s assassination for the Detroit Free Press and the Civil Rights movement for the New York Times, for which he also served as Saigon bureau chief in Vietnam in 1968.

Friedlein shared the story of his first visit to Bath in 1973 and how later discussion with journalist colleagues revealed the weight of Roberts’ name in news — there was no recognition of Bath as the state’s oldest town, or even the home of the notorious pirate Blackbeard, Friedlein said. Instead, it was “Bath? Gene Roberts has a place there.”

Roberts has, indeed, had a place in Bath for a long while — 45 years — but his love for the town was founded much earlier. His grandfather owned a cottage in Bayview, as did his aunt, and he has many childhood memories of visits to the river.

“I just always have been taken by Bath and its history,” Roberts said.

It was his appreciation of the town’s charm and history that made him a strong voice in Bath’s preservation. Sermons recalled how Roberts’ words at town board meeting inspired a renewed dedication to save Swindell’s Cash Store at a time when the building had deteriorated to the point of being a safety hazard and the family was considering tearing it down.

“Enter Gene Roberts,” Sermons told the crowd. “At a board meeting, not loudly, not excited or agitated, not mad or frustrated. Calmly, quietly, with his incredible resonating voice, he said something like this: ‘I have heard all the reasons the effort to save the Swindell Store has not been accomplished. I understand them. But a larger issue is at stake here. If you think about Main Street Bath, you think about the Swindell Store. When you come around the corner, off the bridge, it is the first thing you see. It is the character and charm of Main Street, and thus Bath. I cannot imagine a Main Street without the Swindell Store. What a change in the fabric of our town that would be.

‘So I would suggest that the question before us is not whether we can afford to save the Swindell Store. The question before us is whether we can afford not to save the Swindell Store. We must get this done.’”

It was done — through the combined effort of HBF, the Town of Bath, the nonprofit Preservation NC, Bath Commissioner Jay Hardin, the Swindell family and Friedlein, who restored the building, creating within an airy, open space ideal for Friday’s gathering.

About induction into the ranks of Order of the Long Leaf Pine, as well as acknowledgment from U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, Roberts was characteristically humble.

“I’m very pleased, but the real credit for things that have been happening in Bath goes to two relatively new organizations — the Historic Bath Foundation and Bath High School Preservation,” Roberts said. “They have become the vehicles to get things done.”