Willard Braxton “Tom” Hinnant

Willard Braxton (Tom) Hinnant
(September 30, 1925 – April 2, 2023)

Willard Braxton (Tom) Hinnant was born on September 30, 1925, in Smithfield NC, the third child of Stephen Rayford Hinnant and Leora Jones Hinnant. His family later moved to property just outside Selma. While attending Selma High School, he joined the baseball team and later remembered fondly playing in a perfect game against Corinth Holders. During high school, he also met his future wife, Kathleen Starling, and through their 74 years of marriage, they continued to support the school as parents, grandparents, and members of the Selma High Good Ol’ Boys and Girls Association.

After graduation in 1942, Tom worked several jobs (his father, a master mason, had trained him as a bricklayer), but in October of 1943 (during WWII) he was drafted into the Army. He was stationed in the European Theatre with General Patton’s Third Army and followed the tanks across Europe through the cold and mud with shelling all around them for almost two years. Tom used to say that one of the best things that happened to him at the end of the war was seeing his brother, Garland, who had been stationed in London where he was part of a munitions unit that loaded the bombs onto the airplanes. Tom was sitting on the banks of the Danube River in Linz, Austria when he saw his brother walking up. Tom joked that Garland had come on an ambulance that “he had probably stolen,” but he was thrilled to see him again after so many months.

Shortly thereafter, when the Armistice was declared on August 14, 1945, as a Staff Sergeant, Tom was assigned the command of a prison camp in Berchtesgaden, Germany guarding 200 of the German SS Troops for eight months awaiting the Nuremburg Trials. In April of 1946, he was discharged from the Army in order to return home to be with his mother who was dying.

Amazingly, in 2011 (65 years later), Tom was contacted by the Veteran’s Legacy Foundation and informed that while searching his military service record, they had discovered that he had never received nine WWII medals that had been designated for him including Combat Infantry, Sharpshooter – Auto Rifle BAR – Carbine BAR, Army of Occupation Medal and Germany Clasp, The American Campaign Medal, The World War II Victory Medal, and the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with the attachment of the Bronze Star. These were awarded by the US Army in a ceremony on the Johnston County Courthouse steps in December of 2011.

After he returned from the war, he married Kathleen in 1946 and began building his career with his father and brother in their newly formed construction company, SR Hinnant & Sons in Selma. During this time, he also joined the Selma Original Free Will Baptist Church and was active in every phase of the ministry throughout his lifetime. Although Tom did not build the original church, he did conduct the renovation of the sanctuary in the late 1960’s and oversaw the building of the Educational Building annex. (In 2021, Tom was honored by the church with the Servant’s Heart Plaque for “countless years of dedicated and outstanding service as a Deacon, Trustee, Sunday School Teacher, and Builder of Selma Original Free Baptist Church.”)

During the 1950’s, Tom’s family grew by four children for whom he built a new home in Selma in 1959, and where he continued to live for the remainder of his life. He received his NC General Contractor’s Unlimited License and began local and civic involvement. Tom joined American Legion Post 341 and the Lions Club in Selma as well as the Johnston County Shrine Club where he helped start the first fish fry. In 1959, Tom also joined Selma Masonic Lodge 320 and ultimately became the Lodge Master. (In 2019 Tom was honored by the Lodge for 70 years of membership. They wanted to give him a 70-year pin, but the national organization had never created one for that many years. He was very grateful for the gift of a gold watch.)

In the 1960’s he also obtained his real estate license and began his construction work in larger commercial and residential projects. He joined with other parents to build a community pool in Selma. He built two of the high school buildings that adjoin the gym at the Selma school, the clubhouse at the Cardinal Country Club in Selma that was being established at that time, and developed the property and built the original main warehouse for Guy C. Lee Building Materials Store and Sawmill in Smithfield.

In the 1970’s, Tom was selected as a trustee for Mt. Olive Jr. College. He also developed several subdivisions including two in Selma. He built First Citizens Bank and Kenly Savings and Loan Bank in Selma as well as the Selma Fire Station, the Police Station, and Parrish Funeral Home.

As the years went by, Tom’s business name changed to Hinnant Construction, and he took on more industrial projects – chiefly banks and post offices. For the next 20 years, he worked with Mr. Frank Holding to build many of the First Citizens banks all over eastern North Carolina and a few in South Carolina. He also worked on several federal projects and built post offices all around the area including Selma, Smithfield, Micro, Black Creek, Clarkton, and Angier to name a few. In addition, he, along with others in the Selma Masonic Lodge, built a new lodge building in Selma where, on the entry plaque, he is listed as the chief architect. At that time, he was also a Past Master.

In 2000 at the age of 75, Tom retired from his business and joined a three-member team of construction consultants to work for the Johnston County Board of Education charged with helping to oversee the most aggressive building program in the history of the school system funded by local bond referendums. During the next ten years (until 2010), he was assigned numerous projects as the district added 20 new prototype schools, built a number of custom-designed schools, and renovated and expanded various existing school and district buildings (a total of over 40 major projects).

In between working and family life, Tom and his wife spent time visiting in every state in the US including Alaska and Hawaii. They loved going to Texas and California and even chartered a helicopter to fly over Alcatraz. They visited 5 continents and over 36 countries where they spent weeks at a time including Great Britain, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Israel, Turkey, the Netherlands, Australia (where he snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef) and New Zealand. They traveled on a barge down the Nile, took a cruise to Nova Scotia, took a water journey through the lock system of the Panama Canal, slept on grass mats in China, and sailed on a junk. They loved Paris and traveled there six times. But Tom often said that if he could go anywhere again, it would be to Istanbul. He was fascinated by the markets.

Tom also participated in carrying Meals on Wheels to people in the community for over 25 years – just one of many ways he contributed his time and talents to the town. Tom and Kathleen were recognized by the Town of Selma as Grand Marshals for one of the Railroad Days Parades as well as honored as Distinguished Citizens of Selma by the Smithfield-Selma Chamber of Commerce.

In 2016, at the age of 90, Tom volunteered to serve as a consultant along with six other local townspeople on the Selma Civic Center Restoration Committee in a three-year effort to renovate a large 1939 WPA building into a venue for community and business gatherings. He advised them on the blockwork for the addition, the brick courtyard, and construction of the new porches and walkways. In addition, he became their chief fundraiser, bringing in over $70,000 on his own. The building opened to the public in 2019 and received an award from NC Preservation for historic renovation.

On April 2, 2023, at 97 years of age, Tom passed away peacefully from natural causes in his sleep at his home in Selma. He is survived by his four children – Ann Williams of Selma, Julie Jones (Jim) of Raleigh, Jane Hardy (Rick) of Wilson, and Will Hinnant (Margaret) of Smithfield along with seven grandchildren – Meredith Taylor, Kevin Taylor, Mary Kathryn Washington, David Jones, Scott Jones, Jason Jones, and Daniel Hinnant as well as 12 great-grandchildren. Tom is preceded in death by his wife, Kathleen (the love of his life to whom he was married for 74 years), his parents, his brother Garland Hinnant of Smithfield and his sister, Josephine Little of Kentucky.

The Tom Hinnant family wishes to recognize and express heartfelt gratitude to Mrs. Willie Mae Richardson and (posthumously) to Mr. King Godwin for decades of faithful work and personal friendship in helping the family with all sorts of interior, exterior and construction projects. A special thanks also goes to Ms. Michelle Mendiola for months of caregiver assistance, and to Dr. Raghu Katuru of Smithfield, Dr. Benjamin Atkeson of Clayton, and Dr. Carmine Kalorin of Raleigh for years of outstanding, unwavering, and life-saving medical care.

A funeral service will be held at 11 am, Wednesday, April 5th at Selma Original Free Will Baptist Church in Selma with Tom’s grandsons and great-grandsons serving as pall bearers. The family will receive friends at the burial which will follow at Selma Memorial Gardens. The family also requests in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Masonic Home for Children, 600 College St., Oxford, NC 27565 and/or to Selma Original FWB Church PO Box 224, Selma NC 27576.