Wofford E Malphrus

Wofford Evans Malphrus of Ridgeland, S.C., died peacefully in his sleep Thursday night after celebrating his 89th birthday. In recent years Wofford often confided to friends and family that he was “ready” — eager to join his wife Joyce, who preceded him in death in 2008.

Born in Jasper County on August 23, 1929, Wofford was the fifth child and second son of Theodosia Malphrus and Willouck Malphrus, game keeper for decades on Good Hope Plantation. Like father, like son, Wofford was more interested in hunting the abundant deer, dove, quail, ducks and squirrels in the woods around him than in his studies at Ridgeland’s public schools, which he left to join the U.S. Army Air Force in 1946. Although his superiors at Shaw Air Force Base urged him to enter officers’ training school, Wofford opted to attend Furman University in Greenville, S.C., on the G.I. Bill.  It wasn’t long before his young wife, Joyce Childress Malphrus, joined him. His struggles to balance his studies against hunting and fishing were the topic of many family conversations, but in 1954 he finally graduated. The following months saw him enter executive training with the  Boy Scouts of America, spurred on by having “inherited” the leadership of a Boy Scout troop during college.

He worked for the Boy Scouts for 38 years, moving up in rank and taking on ever larger councils, forming long-lasting friendships along the way. After serving as a district executive and camp director for the Coastal Carolina Council in Charleston, he moved to Reidsville, N.C., in 1964 to take the position of Scout Executive for the Cherokee Council. During his years in Reidsville, Wofford built up the council by securing land and funding for a new 2,000-acre camp in Caswell County. Membership swelled under his leadership while the area’s quail and dove population declined.

His next assignment, in 1971, took him to the Chehaw Council in Albany, Georgia, where he built a new scout office and, according to the local paper, “left a legacy of leadership and growth.” The game population is still recovering.  In 1979 he moved to the Coastal Empire Council in Savannah, Georgia, where he also established a new office as well as securing land and funding for yet another highly successful camp.

Wofford and Joyce loved Savannah, which was just over the state line from Wofford’s boyhood hunting grounds. He had become well-known for the annual deer hunts that he organized, not to mention his uncanny ability to kill more and larger deer than anyone else. One executive remembers Wofford shooting an eight-point buck, and then saying, “Tom, I wish I had put you on that stand — so I could show you how to shoot a deer that big.” Wofford’s knack at bagging more game, landing larger fish and catching more shrimp than anyone else was legendary, a status he and his older brother Ted vied for. He also had a sharp eye for finding arrowheads, and his collection from years of hunting them is impressive.

Once “retired,” Wofford and Joyce moved into her parents’ house in Ridgeland and found a number of new interests, although he continued to raise funds for the Boy Scouts.  Along with Joyce, he became intensely interested in local history and genealogy. Braving briars, snakes and chiggers, he identified the location of every known gravestone in Jasper County and then published a book documenting their locations and inscriptions. He also became the president of the Jasper County Historical Society and began contrubuting historical articles for statewide publications. Wofford abandoned bird hunting for birdwatching and took his new hobby so seriously that he and Joyce established in Jasper County the first new Audubon chapter in South Carolina in decades.

A deacon at Euhaw Baptist Church, Wofford later in life transferred his letter to Great Swamp Baptist Church, where he had been baptised as a boy. Throughout his life, Wofford was a model Christian. From stopping on the road to help stranded travelers to giving unfortunate people whatever they needed, his actions came from his heart and his close devotion to God.

After the funeral service  at Sauls Funeral Home in Ridgeland Tuesday,  Wofford will be buried in the family plot in Grahamville Cemetery, just down the road from where he was born. Like his dad, Wofford passed on his love of nature and the outdoors to his son and daughters, who passed them on to their children.

Wofford is survived by his sister, Rowena Wannamaker;  one son: Wofford (“Bucky”) Malphrus Jr. and his wife, Sally; two daughters: Anne Bailey and her husband, David; Virginia Moore, and her husband, Tim (“Bokey,”); six grandchildren, Cameron Malphrus, Sarah Bailey, Christopher Malphrus, Alice Bailey, Sara Malphrus and Matthew Moore, as well as three great-grandchildren, Cameron Jr., Valerie, and Reuben.

Funeral services will be held at 4:00 pm, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at Sauls Funeral Home Chapel, 310 W. Adams St., Ridgeland, SC with burial in Grahamville Cemetery.  The family will receive friends beginning at 3:00 pm on Tuesday at the funeral home.