South Carolina said goodbye to these Palmetto State newsmakers in 2019
Several Palmetto State newsmakers who had a lasting effect on Columbia, the state and the country died in 2019.
Among them were a former S.C. governor and U.S. senator, a civil rights lawyer who fought for poor women, a Nobel Prize winner who helped revolutionize medicine, and several people who served as lawmakers.
Here’s a look at some of the notable figures South Carolina said goodbye to in 2019.
Greenville public official, postmaster
Former S.C. Sen. Ralph Anderson, of Greenville, died in November at the age of 92. Prior to becoming state legislator, he served on the Greenville City Council. He also was a retired postmaster. He served in the Legislature, first as representative from 1991 through 1996, and then as a state senator from 1997 through 2012.
SC judge, legislative leader
Former judge and State House Majority Leader Julius Baggett died in September at the age of 94. The McCormick County Democrat served in the House from 1967-1968, and again in 1971-1974. From 1976 to 1994, he served as a judge in the state’s 11th Judicial Circuit.
Lawmaker and WWII veteran
T. Moffatt Burriss, a Republican lawmaker from Columbia and World War II veteran, died in January at the age of 99. Burriss was a paratrooper in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945. His unit’s 1944 mission in the Netherlands, “Operation Market Garden” was featured in the movie “A Bridge Too Far. His unit also helped liberate a concentration camp later in the war.
He represented Richland County in the S.C. House from 1977 to 1991.
Many knew her as ‘Ms. Emily’
Emily Clyburn, wife of U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, died in September at the age of 80. The activist and librarian helped raise thousands of dollars for scholarships to help students go to college.
Known as Ms. Emily by many, Clyburn was jailed in March 1960 with her future husband, Jim Clyburn, during a civil rights demonstration. Shortly after Emily Clyburn died, Juniper Street in the historic Greenview area in Columbia was renamed Emily England Clyburn Way in her honor. The Clyburns moved to the area in 1972.
Former Commerce secretary
Fred Dent, a Spartanburg textile businessman who served in the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, died this month at the age of 97. He served as Nixon’s U.S. secretary of commerce and then as special representative for trade negotiations for Ford.
USC trustee
University of South Carolina Trustee A.C. “Bubba” Fennell III died in December at 69. He had been suffering from cancer. The retired CPA had been on the board since 2012. Prior to serving on the board of trustees, he worked for Elliot Davis, LLC, the firm that acts as the university’s auditor.
Musician dies after brain cancer battle
Local musician Aaron Graves died in June after a five-year battle with brain cancer. The Columbia native helped found Fork & Spoon Records and was the lead singer of local indie rock band Those Lavender Whales. In October, work on a downtown mural featuring his picture and his love for doughnuts was started.
Former governor, senator
In April, Fritz Hollings, a former S.C. governor and U.S. senator, died at 97 years old. The Democrat served as lieutenant governor from 1955 to 1959, and then as governor from 1959 to 1963. During his four years as governor, he fought for the technical college system which eventually helped students learn industrial skills and attract thousands of factory jobs to South Carolina. He also fought to improve race relations in the state, calling for the state’s white public colleges and universities to admit black students.
He then served six terms in the U.S. Senate, at one point leading the Senate Budget Committee, and ran for president in 1984 but didn’t secure the Democratic nomination.
Former USC athletics director
A former University of South Carolina athletics director, and a college football hall of famer, Mike McGee died in August at the age of 80. He was USC’s AD for 12 years and hired Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier as football coaches, baseball coach Ray Tanner as baseball coach, and Curtis Frye as track and field coach, before retiring in 2005.
Legendary football coach
Longtime high school football coach John McKissick died in November at 93 years old.
McKissick holds the national record for most wins by a high school coach, with a record of 621-155-13 during his 63 years at Summerville High School. His teams won 10 state titles.
Nobel Prize winner
Kary Mullis, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist who graduated from Columbia’s Dreher High School, died in August. He was 74.
In 1983, Mullis invented the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which made it possible to replicate minuscule amounts of DNA into unlimited quantities. Scientists were then able to create millions of copies of a single, microscopic strand of DNA within hours. The technique revolutionized fields from molecular biology to medicine, and eventually led to the mapping of the human genome.
In 1993, Mullis was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Richland businessman, legislator
Julius Murray, a longtime Richland County businessmen and Democratic legislator, died in September. The Air Force veteran, among the first African American recruiters in the southeast, served in the State House from 1979 to 1984. Prior to to being in the state Legislature, Murray served on the Richland County Council, where he was the council’s first African American vice chairman.
A former GOP chairman
Kenneth Powell, who served as the S.C. Republican Party chairman from 1971 to 1974, died in October at the age of 80. Powell’s leadership of the party came at a pivotal time. In 1974, the state elected its first Republican governor since Reconstruction in James Edwards.
Powell had also worked on the campaign staffs of former S.C. Gov. Robert McNair and former Congressman Floyd Spence and served as an aide to Republican U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater from Arizona. He ran for office several times and also served as the chairman of the Richland County GOP.
A lawyer for impoverished women
Edna Smith Primus — who was one of the first black women to practice law in the state and worked with the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1970s — died in November at the age of 75. She defended the rights of poor women who were unjustly sterilized and helped shape rules for lawyers’ free speech.
While working with the ACLU, Primus represented impoverished women who had been sterilized as a condition of them receiving welfare benefits. She had been reprimanded by the S.C. Supreme Court which said it was unethical for her to solicit business as she suggested the ACLU could sue on behalf of women hurt by the sterilization policy. The U.S. Supreme Court later overturned that reprimand, declaring lawyers may reach out to potential clients while doing work that involves political expression and advocating for the rights of the public.
Two-sport athlete, coach
Cy Szakacsi, a former South Carolina two-sport athlete and Midlands coaching legend, died in November. He was 96 years old. He played basketball and baseball for the Gamecocks in the late 1940s He went on to coach and win state titles in high school football, basketball and baseball with stops at University High, A.C. Flora and Heathwood Hall Episcopal in Columbia.
Szakacsi also is a member of S.C. Athletics Coaches Association Hall of Fame and S.C. Athletics Hall of Fame.
Longtime elections supervisor
Betty Whitesides, the former York County Voter Registration and Elections director who helped guide the county transition from punch card ballots to computerized voting, died on Saturday. She was 81 years old.
She ran the elections office in the fast growing area from the 1970s, when York County had fewer than 100,000 people, until 2003, when the county had close to 250,000 residents.
Aiken County legislator
Republican lawmaker Ronnie Young, who represented Aiken County in the state House of Representatives, died in May at 71. He had been suffering from cancer and had a stroke several weeks before he died, according to the Aiken Standard. Young had been in the state House since 2017.
This story was originally published January 1, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
