Book excerpt: A visionary writer, John Ehle. A progressive politician, Terry Sanford. That was the magical alliance that in the early 1960s created an institution so unorthodox & heretical as to be unlike any other, the North Carolina School of the Arts. The odds against this dream were tremendous. Opposition came from almost every major educational institution & arts organization in the state, not to mention the legislature. But in the end, the novelist & the governor who hired him to bring creativity to North Carolina's system of education won out. This book tells the story of the North Carolina School of the Arts from its inception to its acclaim by many of the world's greatest performing artists.