Changes of the Week

¶William A. Blount, 61, executive vice president of Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co., Inc., was appointed president succeeding Benjamin F. Few, who is retiring under a mandatory retirement plan. Varsity center on the 1919 University of North Carolina football team, Blount joined Liggett & Myers in 1923, became superintendent of the Durham factory in 1925, a vice president in 1943. ¶ Hugh William Close Jr., 39, son-in-law and assistant to the late Elliott White Springs (TIME, Oct. 26), was elected president of the Springs Cotton Mills (1958 net sales: approximately $165 million). Close joined Springs Mills, Inc. as a sample-room employee in 1946, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school and carrier duty in the Navy, married the boss's daughter the same year. Colonel Springs, after the death of his only son, groomed Close to be his heir.