Obituaries for Saturday, Jan. 24, 2004

By Staff
FLORENCE, S.C. Services for Dr. Edward J. Byrd will be held Monday at 11 a.m. at the First Baptist Church in Florence, S.C. Burial will be in Mount Hope Cemetery. Waters-Powell Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Dr. Byrd, 91, of Florence, died Thursday, Jan. 22, 2004 in Edgewood, Ky. He was born in Mount Olive, Miss. on Jan. 28, 1912. He graduated from Mount Olive High School, Mississippi College in Clinton, Miss. and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. He was director of a championship band for Amory High School in Amory, Miss. from 1934-1937. In 1954, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Furman University in Greenville. He began his preaching ministry as pastor of the Holly Springs Baptist Church in Holly Springs, Miss., and in 1940, he became pastor of Highland Baptist Churich in Meridian, Miss. From there, he went to the First Baptist Church of Florence, where he served until his retirement in April 1977. During his years in South Carolina, the church completed the building of a new sanctuary, an educational building, a Christian Activities building and the renovation of existing educational space. During his time there more than 1,000 were baptized and more than 4,000 people joined the church. He conducted more than 900 funerals and more than 300 wedding ceremonies. He was active in Baptist denominational work, serving in the local ministerial alliance in Mississippi, and as moderator of the Florence Baptist Association in South Carolina. On the state level, he was a former trustee of Mississippi Woman's College, now William Carey College, and he served as vice president and then president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. He also served as chairman of the Capital Needs Committee. His nation-wide activities included being a trustee of the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., where he also served as chairman of the trustees, Mississippi Woman's College and Furman University in Greenville. After retiring, Dr. Byrd was elected a visiting professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. where he taught for two years. Following his teaching assignment, he served as interim pastor for a number of churches in Georgia, Mobile, Ala., and in Anderson and Gaffney.
Survivors include his son, Davis Byrd and his wife, Kay, of Nashville; daughter, Joy Rich and her husband, Jim, of Edgewood, Ky.; a daughter-in-law, Marty Byrd of Durant, Okla.; five granddaughters, Julia Mangrum of Claremore, Okla., Laura Claborn and her husband, Robert, of Durant, and Sylvia Corts and her husband, David, of Atlanta, Nora Bahnt and her husband, Byron, of Marietta, Ga. and Helen Rich of New Orleans; two grandsons, Stephen Byrd of Auburn, Ala. and Eric Rich of Washington, D.C.; seven great grandchildren, Drew Mangrum, Tessa Claborn, Hannah and Michael Bahnt and Tripp, Molly and Sophie Corts; a niece, Nita Lumpkin of Stanardsville, Va.; a nephew, Byrd Ball of his wife, Alice, of Atlanta; one brother-in-law, Claude Huang of Fort Lee, N.J.; and five grand nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Nora Brown Byrd; a son, Edward L. Byrd Jr.; and five sisters, Corinne Byrd, former French professor at Mercer University in Macon, Ga., Juanita Byrd Huang, former Baptist missionary to China, Annie Ward Byrd, former editor of the Baptist Sunday School Board in Nashville, Hasseltine Ball, former staff member of Louisiana State University; Valois Byrd, former public school teacher in Nashville; a brother, Hugh McNeil Byrd, former FBI agent and professor of criminology at Eastern Kentucky University; and his parents, Dr. James Edward and Leona McNeil Byrd. His father may be remembered as "Mr. Sunday School" in Mississippi. He was Sunday School Secretary for the Mississippi Baptist Convention from 1907 until he died in 1937.
Memorials may be made to Furman University, 3300 Poinsett Hwy., Greenville, SC, 29506.
Arrangements were incomplete at Clark's Memorial Funeral Home for Willie Cole, 55, of Savoy, who died Thursday, Jan. 22, 2004, at Guardian Angel Hospice.
Arrangements were incomplete at Berry and Gardner Funeral Home for Keith Watts, 40, of Quitman, who died Thursday, Jan. 22, 2004 at H.C. Watkins Memorial Hospital.