Joseph Claymon "Joe" Cunningham

Joseph ("Joe") Claymon Cunningham was born on December 6, 1941, in Baldwyn, MS to Evelyn and Red Cunningham. He died on the morning of October 27, 2025, at his home in Cordova, Tennessee, with his wife of sixty-one years, Priscilla, his son Craig, and his grandson Allen at his side. He had lived with Parkinson's disease for twelve years; the final year left him largely immobile and soft-spoken. He died quietly and without pain, five weeks short of his eighty-fourth birthday. He is survived by his wife; his children Craig, Cathy, and Scott; his son-in-law Jeffrey; his daughter-in-law Honey; and his former daughter-in-law Paige. He also leaves nine grandchildren - Lucy, Jeffrey, Bedon, Jamie, Allen, Joseph, Miles, Willow, and Ren - along with his beloved nephews Jerry and Mike and his niece Tammy, and their families. Act 1. Baldwyn Mississippi to Starkville Mississippi Joe grew up in Baldwyn, Mississippi, the youngest of three boys in a close-knit family that ran Cunningham's Grocery, a Main Street institution. His brothers, Jimmy and John, stayed in the business, but Joe took another road. He was athletic and competitive, playing point guard in basketball, quarterback in football, and catcher in baseball through high school-traits that later surfaced in his love of tennis, running, and boxing. Even into his eighties he carried the posture of an athlete, lean and disciplined. Instead of joining the family store, he became the first in his family to attend college, earning a mathematics degree from Mississippi State University. It was the early 1960s, a time when the South was beginning to change, and Joe's choice pointed toward that wider world. He stayed loyal to his Bulldogs all his life, quiet but devoted, the way he was about most things he loved. Act 2. Marriage and the Leap into Computing Joe met Priscilla shortly after graduating from Mississippi State. They married in the spring of 1964 and moved to Memphis, where a friend's referral landed him a job at Roadway Express, a freight company booming with the new interstate system. He began on the management-training track, rotating through dispatch, billing, and payroll-learning each desk so he could one day run a terminal. It was dependable work in a growing industry, but within a year business itself began to change. Companies were buying their first mainframes, and almost no one knew how to program them. Sensing opportunity, Joe wrote to Roadway's headquarters asking to be trained. They said yes. In 1965 he and Priscilla packed up their apartment and moved to Akron, Ohio, where he joined a small class learning to code the RCA Spectra 70/25 in assembly language. Programming then meant pencil, paper, and punch cards-work that demanded the precision, logic, and quiet patience that came naturally to him. After several years in Indiana-first with Indiana National Bank, then Honeywell-Joe brought his young family home to Mississippi. In 1977 he founded Data Systems Incorporated in Brookhaven, taking out loans for a large computer and large high-speed printer to process property-tax rolls for counties across the state. He built a thriving business, bidding county by county, until binders of green-bar reports filled the office. Priscilla managed the books, helped run the machines and helped Joe manage the small number of employees at Data Systems. Joe also ran the machines as well as moonlight as a consultant who wrote code for hospitals, doctors' offices, and small firms that needed his help all over the state. To them he was more than merely a "data man." He was a calm, reliable man with a problem-solver mentality who no matter the problem, made their systems work. Act 3. Resilience and Return The story of the late 20th century and computing looks exactly like the story of Joe's career as a programmer. As the technology Joe had helped pioneer grew cheaper, counties began buying their own computers. Bids for outside services disappeared, and within a few years the business he built could no longer compete. One morning he locked the Brookhaven office door for the last time and simply said, "We'll start again." He moved Priscilla and their youngest, Scott, to Cordova, Tennessee, where he started over as a programmer at forty-eight-exactly where he had begun twenty-five years earlier. It wasn't defeat; it was life lessons and continuity. Joe's career in Memphis included International Paper, Josten's, and Allenberg Cotton. He kept a full work record, never missed a payment, never left a gap. His steadiness became the family's foundation. Evenings were quieter now: bridge, Trivial Pursuit, politics on television. He was ruthless in cards, unbeatable in trivia, but never unkind. His family does not recall him ever talking trash despite dominating his games. He liked contests where the outcome depended on memory, logic, and nerve. No gambling, no bluster-just the clean satisfaction of getting it right. At his core, Joe sought order and harmony, in people as in code. He was a family man and a man of faith, devoted to the belief that life reached beyond what the eye could see, and that a loving God had guided him all along. He told his wife and children he loved them every day-and meant it. Joe was an especially loving grandfather, always there with a listening ear and a helping hand. In 2006, Joe and Priscilla were founding members of Redeemer Presbyterian Church of Memphis and have remained loyal congregants in that loving body for almost 20 years. Services are 12:30 pm Saturday, November 1, 2025 in the Baldwyn Chapel of Kesler Funeral Home with Rev. Jeffrey Lancaster officiating. Graveside services will follow in the Baldwyn Masonic Cemetery. Visitation will be 11-12:30 Saturday in the Baldwyn Chapel of Kesler Funeral Home. Joe was preceded in death by his parents, Olander & Evelyn Cunningham and his brothers, Jimmy Cunningham & John Cunningham. His grandsons will serve as his pallbearers. Honorary pallbearers will be the graduating Class of 1959 of Baldwyn High School. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Redeemer Presbyterian Church of Memphis, 651 Cooper Street, Memphis, TN 38104. To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Joseph "Joe" Claymon Cunningham, please visit our floral store.