Mack L. GRAVES

GRAVES, Mack L. 87, of Seminole, passed Friday, June 15, 2012. Soldier, educator, entrepreneur, philanthropist and devoted family man was born Jan. 29, 1925, in a log cabin on a farm near Darden, TN, to Irving and Mary Graves. He was the youngest of eight siblings, including brothers Ray, Ross, and Gordon and sisters Bonnie Mae, Jesse, Minnie, and Callie, all of whom predeceased him. He attended a one room school, Pleasant Hill School, until he reached high school age and then moved to Lexington, TN, to live with his oldest sister and graduate from the public high school there. As a combat infantryman in WWII, Mack was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart during the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, Mack earned both BA (1948) and MA (1950) degrees in English from Peabody Teachers College at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. His concentration of study was in Shakespearean drama. He was elected to several academic honor societies, including Phi Beta Kappa. Mack met his beloved wife, Mildred, at Franklin High School, Franklin, TN where she was student teaching home economics and he was teaching English. They married July 14, 1951, and left Tennessee for Florida, where Mack served as a high school principal in Fernandina Beach, Greenville, and Brooksville. In 1958, they moved to St. Petersburg, where Mack taught English at St. Petersburg Jr. College, now St. Petersburg College for the next 20 years. In 1958, they also became members of Northwest Church of Christ, where Mildred taught Sunday School and Mack served, over many years, in the roles of deacon, elder, and teacher. Mack and Mildred also owned and operated both the Park Blvd. Nursery School & Kindergarten in Pinellas Park and the Central Plaza Day School in St. Petersburg from Jan. 1959 until the schools were sold in the late 1970s. They were among the first racially integrated nursery schools in St. Petersburg. They also co-founded Graves & Graves, a commercial properties enterprise that remains in operation. For more than thirty years, Mack was a member of the Kiwanis Club of Seminole; he held many Club offices and was named Kiwanian of the Year in 1983. Mack and Mildred loved to travel, and over the years they visited six of the seven continents. Among their favorite destinations were Capri, Paris, and Moscow. A devoted husband, father, "Granddad," teacher, and friend, Mack will be sorely missed by his wife of more than 60 years; his four children and their spouses, Judith Colvocoresses (James), Scott Graves (Anita), Ellen Marsh (William), and Jeffrey Graves (Julie); and his six very special grandchildren, Morgan Leiby, Adam Graves, Jessica and Katherine Marsh, and Cameron and Devon Graves. The family will receive friends at the R. Lee Williams & Son Funeral Home 3530-49th St. N., St. Petersburg, FL. 33710 Friday, June 22 from 5-7pm. Funeral Services will be conducted Saturday, June 23 at Northwest Church of Christ 6355 38th Ave. N, St. Petersburg, FL 33710 at 1 pm. Interment will follow in Memorial Park Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Mildred P. Graves Early Childhood Education Scholarship Fund, c/o the College of Education at the University of Tennessee, A-304 Bailey Education Complex, 1122 Volunteer Blvd., Knoxville, TN 37996 or to Suncoast Hospice, 5771 Roosevelt Blvd., Clearwater, FL 33760. http://www.rlwilliams.com/ R. Lee Williams & Son, 49th St. N. 727-527-1177