Obituaries for Sunday, March 28, 2004
By Staff
QUITMAN Services for Elmer Dallas "Shorty" Townsend will be held Monday at 11 a.m. at Pachuta Baptist Church. Burial will be in Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Meridian. Wright's Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Mr. Townsend, 62, died Friday, March 26, 2004, at Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center. He was a native of Meridian and was employed by Horizon Offshore Contractors as a tower operator. He was a veteran of the U.S. Navy.
Survivors include five sons, Dallas Townsend of Magee, Darrell Townsend of Cleburne, Texas, Toby Townsend of Enterprise, Keiffer Townsend and Teddy Townsend, both of Causeyville; his parents, Pete and Malene Townsend of Pachuta; two sisters, Bobbie Martin of Jackson and Briggette Singley of Pachuta; three granddaughters, Katie, Kadyn, and Rachel; and several nieces, nephews and friends.
Visitation will be held today from 5 p.m.-9 p.m. at the funeral home.
LOUISVILLE Services for Avis Eaves Etheridge will be held today at 3 p.m. at Nowell-Tilghman Funeral Home Chapel. Burial will be in Ellison Ridge Cemetery.
Mrs. Etheridge, 86, of Louisville, died Friday, March 26, 2004, in Meridian. She was a retired employee of the assembly department at Spartus Corp.
Services for Maj. Gen. Howard "Mac" McCormick Sr. will be held Monday at 11 a.m. at St. Patrick Catholic Church with the Rev. Elvin Sunds officiating. Burial will be in Magnolia Cemetery. James F. Webb Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Maj. Gen. McCormick, 81, of Meridian, died Wednesday, March 24, 2004, in Meridian. He was a member of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Meridian. He was a retired Major General with the U.S. Air Force. He served as a Major in World War II and managed all communications support to a P-47 fighter group in England, France, Belgium and Germany.
He finished undergraduate work in English, Political Science, Journalism and some French at the University of Alabama. He then did limited graduate work in Public Administration and taught undergraduate courses in American Government. He left graduate school to return to active duty in 1948. For the next two years he helped establish and instructed management at an Air University Staff Officers School in Montgomery, Ala.
As a Lt. Col., he spent six years in Europe in various senior communications command and management jobs, interspersed by four years in the Pentagon as a Planner and as Executive Officers to the Air Force Director of Communications-Electronics.
In the 1960's, he attended the Air War College, followed by an education-with-industry year in astronautics and space vehicle program management with the Aerojet General Corporation in Azusa, Calif. As a Colonel at the Air Force's Space System Division in Los Angeles from 1962-1965, he managed global satellite control planning, engineering and budgeting activities along with other areas of space test operations. After this he returned to California briefly in 1968 as head of SAC's communications and instrumentation activities at Vandenberg AFB, then moved to SAC headquarters in Omaha, Neb., as director of all command control communications activities for the command.
In the 1970's as a General, he moved from SAC to the staff of the Pacific Commander-In-Chief in Hawaii in 1972, assuming responsibility for all joint command control communications and ADP matters in the Pacific.
In 1974, at the request of the OSD director of telecommunications and command control systems, he moved to the Pentagon as Deputy for Management and Senior Military Staff member.
In 1976, he returned to Los Angeles as Vice Commander of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Organization.
Survivors include his brother, Tom McCormick of New York; sons, Bill McCormick and Doc McCormick, both of Meridian and a daughter, Cheryl Biancamano of California.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Peggy McCormick.
