Funeral service for Peter Collin Coggeshall, Jr., 71, will be held at 2 o’clock on Wednesday, February 25, 2015 at the First Presbyterian Church in Hartsville. The Rev. Dr. Daniel N. Sansbury will officiate with a private burial in Magnolia Cemetery directed by Brown-Pennington-Atkins Funeral Home.
The family will receive friends Wednesday following the service in the church narthex. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the First Presbyterian Church, 213 West Home Avenue, Hartsville SC, 29550, or to a charity of one’s choice.
Mr. Coggeshall died Sunday, February 22, 2015, at his home on Daniel Island, SC after an extended illness. Born in Florence, SC, he was the son of the late Peter Collin and Rosanne Howard Coggeshall. He graduated from Davidson College in Davidson, NC in 1965 with a BA degree in English, served in the United States Army from 1965-1967, and graduated from Harvard University in 1969 with an MBA in General Management.
He began employment with Sonoco Products Company in 1969, where he worked until his retirement in 1998, at which time he held the position of Vice President – Administration.
Mr. Coggeshall served on the local advisory board of Wachovia Bank from 1988 until 1998 and was also a director of Regional Bankshares Inc., and of its subsidiary, Heritage Community Bank from 1999-2012.
In 2002, he was nominated by the governor to represent South Carolina’s 5th District seat on the State Ethics Commission. Mr. Coggeshall was a loving, caring, compassionate, fair, and honest man, who was deeply loved by his family and friends, and who will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved him.
Mr. Coggeshall is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, Collin Drum and Melissa Hayes Coggeshall of Daniel Island, SC; grandsons, Peter Hayes Coggeshall and Weston Howard Coggeshall, also of Daniel Island; and by his loving fiancée, Myra Hayden Richey of Daniel Island and her daughter Katherine McCandlish Richey of Johns Island, SC.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 43 years, Carol Harvey Coggeshall, who he married in Topeka, KS in 1967; and by his sister, Rosanne Howard Coggeshall.
The family would like to thank the doctors and nurses at McLeod Regional Medical Center and at the Medical University of South Carolina with special appreciation to Dr. James C. H. Smith.
He’d written me Dec. 27, in response to our 2013 and 2014 Christmas cards.He told me of his prospective move to Daniel Island, where he would be near his son Collin and his family.
He also shared news of his engagement and his marriage, probably early this year. He alluded to a Bob Collins and the Fabulous Five 1960’s song,”Juke Box” (“If I Didn’t Have a Dime”, he called it), to which he recalled our having “slightly modified” the lyrics.
Said his only Davidson-related contacts were Albert and Jay James, whom he saw occasionally. He was physically active, he said, but did take two-a-week treatments. I knew he’d had a bout with cancer; wish I’d have replied to him, his son , and wife-to-be.
Pete and I were roommates as sophomores, and maybe junior year as well. He was fun, considerate, very regular and disciplined in his study and exercise habits. He married his Davidson – Queens sweetheart, Carol Harvey, soon after graduation. He and I did groomsman duty for each other.
We were not often in touch after that, though I do remember Pete and Carol graciously hosting us for lunch at their Hartsville home when our three children and I stopped there on our way home from a S. C. beach – must have been the mid-1980’s.
We knew of Carol’s illness and her death. It was hard to imagine him without her – they’d been together so many times at parties and on dates. Pete was a great guy, and he and Carol were a wonderful couple.
I am sorry he and Myra Richey didn’t make it to the altar; he said they’d been good for each other, as widow and widower. I know she and her daughter Katherine, and Collin and his wife Melissa, and Pete’s two grandsons, Peter and Weston (ages 9 and 7) will sorely miss my friend Pete. I am sorry for this loss to them – and to me and my classmates.