CARY, N.C. (AP) — David Flaherty, a former cabinet secretary for two Republican North Carolina governors and once a gubernatorial nominee himself, has died at the age of 92.

Flaherty died from natural causes on Dec. 20 at his home in Cary, according to Ben Jenkins with Jenkins Funeral Home in Newton. Flaherty, who had lived previously in western North Carolina, had been in deteriorating health in recent years, Jenkins said Tuesday. A memorial service will be held at a date yet to be determined.

Flaherty was a two-term state senator who later served as state human resources secretary for Gov. Jim Holshouser in the mid-1970s and Gov. Jim Martin in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

Flaherty won his party’s nomination for governor in 1976 but was handily defeated that November by then-Lt. Gov. Jim Hunt, a Democrat who ultimately served four terms as chief executive.

Flaherty also was state Republican Party chairman in the early 1980s and served as Martin’s head of the Employment Security Commission.

A native of Boston, Flaherty moved to Lenoir after joining Broyhill Industries in 1955, according to the funeral home’s prepared obituary.

His wife, Nancy Hamill Flaherty, died last year following their 66 years of marriage. Survivors include several children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.