Governors’ biographer, insider, journalist Grose dies at 73

Sign a memorial guestbook for Philip Gibbs Grose here

Philip Gibbs Grose, whose life balanced the dual roles of trusted South Carolina political insider and journalist-author, died Friday of leukemia. He was 73.

His two books were chronicles of the lives of the two governors he worked for: the late Bob McNair and the late John C. West, both of whom played pivotal roles in the late 1960s and early 1970s in leading South Carolina out of its segregationist past.

Born in Greenville, Grose began his journalism career covering sports for The Charlotte Observer — then a newspaper with major circulation in both Carolinas — as a junior high school student. After graduating from Washington and Lee in 1960, Grose joined The Observer as a full-time sports and general news reporter.

A few years later, he moved to Columbia, where he joined The State and covered sports before becoming business and then governmental affairs editor.

“If Phil wrote something, you put it in your library and filed it away because it was going to be accurate,” said longtime friend Crawford Cook, then a wire service reporter in Columbia and later a Democratic political operative.

In 1968, Grose signed on with the McNair as a speechwriter. In 1972, he joined West’s staff. The two positions gave him a perch from which to observe history in the making as first McNair, then West, struggled to free the state from the centuries-old grip of white supremacy.

“Phil goes back to a time when we had governors who thought things should be accomplished for the betterment of South Carolina — not for narrow political interests,” said Jay Bender, a longtime Grose friend and University of South Carolina School of Law media law professor.

Civil rights history and S.C. history author Jack Bass gave Grose generally high marks for his biographies of McNair and West, especially the West biography. “I was very much impressed with the competence and completeness of the research for that book,” Bass said.

Bass, who covered South Carolina politics in the 1960s, and competed against Grose for a time, said, “Phil was very competent, and he understood how media work. That’s very beneficial to any political figure. He was always direct with the press, never evasive, and if he couldn’t answer a question, he would tell you.”

After retiring from state government, Grose became a senior fellow at the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Southern Studies, where he completed his books on the two governors: “South Carolina at the Brink: Robert McNair and the Politics of Civil Rights,” and “Looking for Utopia: The Life and Times of John C. West.”

At the time of his death, Grose was working on a memoir in collaboration with U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C. Grose had started research on a history of Francis Marion University.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. today at Shandon Presbyterian Church, following a private gravesite ceremony.