David Shepard Smith, Sr. died peacefully in his sleep from oldness and a successfully emptied tank on October 8, 2024 at The Pinnacle of Oxford, Mississippi. He was 96 but didn’t look it, dammit.
Shep’s true loves were his dear wife, Pat, his family, the cotton business, golf, playing cards, dancing up a storm, and the Ole Miss Rebels. He loved to laugh almost as much as he delighted in making everyone else laugh with and at him. The man was funny. Always. His humor—self-deprecating and timely, with lightning-quick wit even well into his 90s—entertained all the lucky folks around him. Whether on the 18th green or around a table inside the Diamond Club at Swayze Field, he’d bust out a quip or interject a zinger that produced belly roars from listeners, young and old.
Shep was born on December 18, 1927, less than two years before the start of the Great Depression, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. He was the son of the late Claude Benton Smith and Lurline Puller Smith, the younger brother of twins Claude, Jr., and Lurline. Shep attended Holly Springs public schools, where, in high school, he was the starting quarterback for the hometown (then) Hawks. Later, in the early 2020s, he showed his family a faded black-and-white of that team. He named each player and observed with mixed emotions that he was the last man standing. “I outlived ‘em all.” As a young'un, Shep played baseball too, but that ended with Depression-era rationing. “They couldn’t gas-up the bus, and anyway, my hand outgrew my glove. That was that.” Shep recalled sharing what little his family had with strangers. “Momma would feed people who found their way to our front porch after rollin into town hangin off freight trains, lookin for a way to survive. We did what we could.”
Shep was a United States Marine. His journey toward service began on a cold December afternoon in 1941, just days before his 14th birthday. As he told the story, Shep was playing sandlot stickball with friends when a voice on a neighbor’s living room RCA radio announced that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. “I ran home to ask Momma where that was.” Soon, most of the older boys had shipped off to war, and Shep was one of the oldest soon-to-be-men in town. “Everybody served. Everybody wanted to serve. It’s what you did.” At age 17, he was put on a train bound for College Station to join the Corp of Cadets at what was then The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. Too young to enlist, he said he had to do his part somehow. “Hell week at A&M made marine boot camp feel like vacation.” Shep later trained at Camp Pendleton and was ready to ship out when President Truman announced the end of hostilities in Europe. Shep later spoke regretfully of how many of his friends never came home, yet he was never sent to fight.
After his honorable discharge, Shep attended The University of Mississippi on the GI bill. “We would line up at the county courthouse every week to get a $20 bill from Uncle Sam. That was all we needed.” At Ole Miss, he joined Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, began dating his future wife, Dora Ellen Green (with whom he fathered two sons). After 3 years he applied to attend the Ole Miss dental school but quickly (and thankfully, he said) realized, “I couldn’t spend my life with my fingers in people’s mouths.” So he went to work at his father’s cotton office on Courthouse Square in Holly Springs. Smith and Beasley Cotton Company became D Shep Smith Cotton Co. in 1955, and there he earned his living and provided for his family.
In summertime, when the cotton business ebbed, Shep spend as much time as he could on the 9-hole golf course at Holly Springs Country Club where he was club champion three times. He traveled the region playing tournaments on “the dirt circuit” and winning trophies while making golf buddies laugh across the mid-south and beyond. His indoor entertainment was cards. He hosted poker games in the back room at the cotton office and at the blackjack table he was a wizard. He had endless fun at casinos in Las Vegas and later in Tunica and on the Mississippi coast. He loved a good (free!) buffet and grazed aplenty. He also enjoyed serving as a director at First State Bank in Holly Springs for 48 years.
Shep married Pat Crockett in 1985. Theirs was a passionate love affair for the ages. Inseparable. The perfect couple. Made for each other. Shep joked; Pat laughed. After he retired in 2007, they moved to Oxford and spent countless hundreds of hours as season ticket-holders at Swayze Field, The Tad Pad, The Pavilion and Vaught-Hemingway Stadium cheering on (and yelling at) the Rebels. For years, into his 90s, Shep never missed a single home game of baseball, basketball or football. Not one. As a fan in the 1950s and 60s, he had celebrated Johnny Vaught’s National Champions. In modern times, being a fan required great patience and dedication. What he lacked in the former he was unwavering in the latter. Though football was his greatest passion, the 2013 SEC basketball tournament was, he said, his favorite sporting event ever. “We never left a tournament a winner before!” That year, Andy Kennedy, and Marshall Henderson, and the rest delivered “the best Rebels trip of my life. MAN that was fun.” A few years later, he marveled at the grit and perseverance of the 2022 baseball national champion Rebels and, at age 95, the last Rebels game he witnessed in person was from the athletic director’s box atop The Vaught when The Lane Train came from behind, late in the 4th, to vanquish those purple shirts and gold britches from Baton Rouge in a 55-49 heart-stopping thriller. “Geaux to hell LSU!” The next day he didn’t remember the Rebs had won but he couldn’t forget what an “amazing experience” it had been. Knowing Shep, golfing, gambling or dancing with Shep, laughing with and at Shep, admiring Shep, and loving Shep was an “amazing experience” for all those so fortunate.
David Shepard Smith, Sr. is survived by his cherished wife Mary Patricia Smith, sons David Shepard Smith, Jr. (Giovanni) of New York City and Robert Benton Smith (Brooke) of Oxford, grandchildren Sadie Grace Smith and David Benton Smith of Oxford, stepdaughters Christy White (Ben) of Ridgeland, MS, and Cami Gurrieri (John) of Charleston, SC, and step granddaughters Elle White, Mary Love Gurrieri and Claire Gurrieri.
A graveside service will be held Friday, October 11, 2024, at 10:30 am, at Hill Crest Cemetery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Arrangements are through Holly Springs Funeral Home.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.