Who is Pat Conroy (Conrack) (C'roy) from The Water Is Wide and what is their importance?

Pat Conroy is the narrator and the author of this autobiographical story. Pat is a Southern man raised in a military family which settles in Beaufort, South Carolina. Pat attends school in Beaufort and goes to college at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. After college, Pat returns to Beaufort where he teaches high school for a year. The burgeoning Civil Rights Movement in the country, and especially the South, guides Pat's humanitarian instincts and he signs up to work for the Peace Corps.