Marion Walter Sams Jr.

 Marion Walter Sams Jr.  was born in Walterboro, June 16, 1935, he was the son of the late Marion Walter Sams and Virginia Howell Riddle Sams. He attended Walterboro High School and enrolled at Clemson College after having completed the 11th grade with enough credits to be admitted. He graduated four years later with the Class of 1956, with a degree in Agriculture Engineering. While a cadet at Clemson, he served as leader of the Pershing Rifles and Senior Platoon. After serving in the Army, he returned to Walterboro to work with his father. He later owned and operated Marion Sams General Construction Company in Walterboro and later at Edisto Beach where he had lived since 1985.

Mr. Sams was very active in the community, where he was a member of the Jaycees, was instrumental in establishing the Republican Party in Colleton County, served as a member of City Council, a member of County Council and a member of the Board of Directors of John C. Calhoun Academy. He participated in many musical events and sang with the Charleston Singers Guild. He was a former member of Bethel United Methodist Church in Walterboro where he was a Sunday School teacher, a member of the chancel choir and a lay delegate to annual conference.

An avid outdoorsman all of his life, Mr. Sams fished the rivers, hunted the woods and swamps of the low country and fished the offshore waters of South Carolina. As a member of the Marine Advisory Committee of the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, he helped set policies that would preserve and protect for others that which he enjoyed.

.Mr. Sams died Saturday, December 13, 2003, in The Franke Home in Mt. Pleasant. Surviving are three daughters and sons-in-law, Ginny and Curt Ledbetter of Mt. Pleasant, Becky and Graham Eubank of Mt. Pleasant and Cathy and Tommy Derrick of Simpsonville; a sister and brother-in-law, Edna and Harold Lewis of Garden City Beach; five grandchildren, Meredith and Davis Ledbetter, Terrill and Gray Eubank and Clark Derrick; an uncle of Edisto Beach, Col. William M. Riddle; a niece, Laura Lewis Eddy of Conway; a nephew, Hal Lewis of Murrells Inlet and his estranged wife, Jane Pate Sams of Walterboro.