WARREN, JR., James James Otto Warren Jr. of Orangeburg and Colleton counties died Monday, August 27, 2007, at his home in Orangeburg after an extended illness. Mr. Warren was president of Home Builders Supply Co. in Orangeburg and of Warren & Griffin Lumber Co. in the Colleton County town of Williams, S.C. Born Nov. 13, 1927, in Williams, Mr. Warren was the son of Sara Kinsey and James Otto Warren Sr. of Williams. He received his B.S. degree in civil engineering from The Citadel in 1946 at the age of eighteen and began working at Home Builders the following fall. The building supply company had been founded in 1945 by his parents and his maternal uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. James Harold (Ione Kinsey) Culler of Orangeburg. After Mrs. Culler’s death in 1961, Mr. Warren purchased the Cullers’ share of the company. After his father’s death in 1965, he began to operate the family farm in Colleton County. Also at that time, along with his cousins and co-owners, Maxwell B. and Paul M. Warren, Mr. Warren re-organized and upgraded the Warren & Griffin Lumber Co., which had been started in 1890 by his grandfather, Burdette M. Warren, and L. P. Griffin, both of Williams. Mr. Warren married Mildred Jackson of Orangeburg Dec. 22, 1950, at First Baptist Church in Orangeburg and had four daughters. He was a lifetime member of Williams United Methodist Church, where he was Sunday School superintendent, and did design work on the church’s building and steeple. He was a member of the Orangeburg Kiwanis Club and the Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce for many years.. He loved to hunt and fish and was known to be an excellent marksman and a skilled freshwater fisherman. Mr. Warren served in the South Carolina National Guard for eight years and attained the rank of second lieutenant. He was a member of the Battle of Eutaw Springs Chapter of the South Carolina Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Col. Olin M. Dantzler Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Maxcy Gregg Chapter of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars and the Huguenot Society of South Carolina. He was also a member of the National Rifle Association and the Edisto Island Open Land Trust. Mr. Warren was a founder and director of Orangeburg National Bank (now Community Resource Bank) and a founding and long-serving director of Community Bankshares. In 1967, he received the Wade Hampton Medal for service as chairman of the Wade Hampton Academy building committee and served on the Academy Board of Directors from 1970 until its merger with Willington Academy to form Orangeburg Preparatory School in 1986. Mr. Warren was treasurer of the Wade Hampton Board from 1979 to 1981 and vice-president/treasurer from 1982 to 1986. He served on the Orangeburg Preparatory School Board as a director from 1987 to 1990; as vice-president from 1991 to 2000 and as president from 2001 to 2005, when he resigned for health reasons. He is survived by his wife; his daughters and sons-in-law: Dr. and Mrs. James Henning (Millie) Brunson Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Kenneth (Nancy) Davidson, Mr. and Mrs. James Howard (Barbara) Shirer Jr. and Mr. and Mrs. Felder Zimmerman (Sara) Evans, all of Orangeburg; nine grandchildren and their spouses: Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Walker (Catherine Brunson) Ayers of Chapin; Mr. and Mrs. James Henning (Natalie McDaniel) Brunson III of Atlanta; Mr. and Mrs. Kayne Bradley (Kinsey Evans) Shirer, William Felder Evans, all of Mount Pleasant; Kevin Warren Davidson, English Kinsey Davidson, Rebecca Lasley Shirer, Susan Warren Shirer, Emily Rutledge Shirer, all of Orangeburg; and three great-grandchildren: Kenneth Walker Ayers Jr., Thomas MacCauley Ayers, both of Chapin; and Bailey Caroline Brunson of Atlanta. The family will receive visitors from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday in Dukes-Harley Funeral Home of Orangeburg. Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday in St. Andrews United Methodist Church with burial to be in Williams Cemetery in Williams. Pallbearers are his cousins: Jack Pershing Padgett Jr. and Dr. Ronald Dale Padgett, both of Bamberg; Warren Smyly Smith Jr. of Gilbert; James Leo Warren Jr., Joseph Madison Warren and Duncan Griffin Warren, all of Williams; Burdette Warren Stone of Columbia; and his nephews: Charles Eugene Jackson of Spartanburg and Thomas Benjamin Jackson III of Lexington. DUKES-HARLEY FUNERAL HOME is in charge of arrangements. Visit our guestbook at www.charleston.net/deaths. Published in the Charleston Post & Courier on 8/28/2007.
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