MARGARET W. DAVIS

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Dr. Margaret W. Davis, widow of Reynolds E. "R.E." Davis and a nationally- and internationally-known educator, died on Monday, Sept. 10, 2018, at her home.

She leaves a rich legacy of service to her beloved Sumter community. Her death ends a generational legacy. She was born the fourth child of Deacon Thomas Boston "TB" Wright and Dr. Marion "Ms. Mae" W. McLester. She also had a brother and sister from her father's previous marriage.

The hallmark of her life was service to children, educators and missions through her local church, Sumter County and the state of South Carolina. She practiced treating people with fairness and honesty regardless of race, socioeconomic status or any other forms of human diversity. Life for Dr. Davis was a classroom and, until the end of life, she found a way to teach principles of integrity, responsibility, dependability and the way to present one's self with dignity and class. Dr. Margaret W. Davis remains, in spirit, a trailblazer who taught that excellence and humility are not only true examples of God's love, they are demonstrations of success. Her teaching career was in elementary language arts and reading. It began at the age of 19 at Rembert Memorial School in Rembert. When this school closed, she taught at Ebenezer High School and ended her classroom teaching in public education at Eastern High School, now R.E. Davis College Preparatory Academy, which is named after her late husband.

She was an epistle of excellence as she broke the color lines as the "first black" in one role or another. This started when she was hired in central administration as reading coordinator for Sumter School District 2. She was the first African-American female to chair the school board of Sumter School District 17. In the early 1990's, as the "first black" to chair the Pee Dee Chapter of the International Reading Association, she was invited by the president of the International Reading Association to present workshops at their international conference in Sweden. She chose not to go alone and took the first multiracial group of reading educators from that chapter with her. As an active National Alumnus and later administrator at Morris College, she chaired the committee that developed the college's general studies curriculum and later became the first chairperson of that department. For her lifetime of devotion and service to Morris College and the community at-large, she was awarded the doctorate of humane letters in 1998.

In the field of missions, Dr. Davis was the first woman to become a trustee at her beloved church, Rafting Creek Baptist Church, which she later chaired and was awarded the honor of chairperson emeritus on her 90th birthday. Her work in the Wateree Baptist Association, Lower Division, continued in leadership. She was the first woman trustee chair in this association. Following in the legacy of her mother, Dr. McLester, she became corresponding secretary of the women's division of the South Carolina State Baptist Education and Missionary Convention.

Dr. Davis was very active in civic and social affiliations. As a dedicated member of the Pi Beta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc., she was its longest serving president. Her commitment to her sorority led her to join her soros Pearl P. Brown and Dr. Beatrice G. Sanders in securing the Zeta House in Sumter for their chapter. She worked on committees in many capacities at the national level. Her civic and social affiliations were many, to include the National Council of Negro Women, the NAACP, the North Main Street Club, the Garden Club and board member of the Santee Lynches Association. Her love for playing bridge meant joining every bridge club she could in Sumter. She was awarded many awards of excellence during her lifetime, to include her induction into the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame.

Dr. Davis was born two months after the death of her father and raised on a farm, where she picked more than a bale of cotton every three days with her mother until she moved to Sumter to live with Eloise Rayford in order to attend Lincoln High School and then Morris College. Though she received a master's degree from Temple University, Philadelphia, advanced certificatio