Page 128 - some-stuff-i-wrote-and-some-stuff-i-didn't-(2011)-h-morris-williams

Some Stuff I Wrote and Some Stuff I Didn't (2011) H. Morris Williams

TRIBUTE TO FRED KINARD (CHS 1942)

Columbia County’s most highly decorated hero of World WarJÌ
Received the Navy Cross and the Silver Star
Killed March 20,1945 while serving our country.

BY MORRIS WILLIAMS

Fred Kinard has been gone more than 50 years but he still lives in my
heart and influences my life.

It is hard for me to believe he is still so real to me because I barely
knew him. I knew him mainly through my older brothers and sisters.

My older brother, Ernest, the Columbia High School ‘Scholar-Athlete
of 1940’, knew him well. Ernest said, “Fred Kinard had a ‘winners
walk’. Whether he was going to class, a football game, or a job, he
seemed to know-know- that success awaited him there-and it
always did.”

Jim Pitman, Fred’s teammate and one of our school’s greatest

athletes, described Fred as a young man ‘who always found a a
way to succeed. To Fred, losing was never an option. And he made
everybody around him-team mates, classmates, friends-perform
better.”

Fred had that rare personal quality. Both boys and girls loved and
respected him. He was movie star- handsome and never seemed to
realize it.

He was a natural born leader. His school mates gravitated toward
him and always seemed to choose him to lead them, whether it was

team captain or class president.

Fred was also something of a contradiction. He was a fierce, tough
competitor on the playing field but was always the sportsman. Off
the field, he was unfailingly gracious, polite, and kind.

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