Marvin McCrory and Columbia construction
By John Temple Ligon Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Marvin Lowery McCrory

Marvin Lowery McCrory was born the fifth of eight children in Kosciusko, Attala County, Mississippi, 40 miles from Yazoo City, the home of Harper's Magazine 1970s editor Willie Morris.

His father was a tenant farmer - cotton and corn, mostly, or whatever could be rotated and turn a profit. About the time he was born, McCrory's farm sold cotton for a nickel a pound.

McCrory's elementary and high school were in the same building under the same name, McAdams High School. McCrory was a good student and a sturdy athlete, and he took those attributes with him to Hinds City Junior College and later to Mississippi State in Starkville. (Probably where Robert Penn Warren picked up the name Stark for his lead character in All the King's Men).

Already a member of the National Guard, McCrory's unit was mobilized in 1940. He had to leave college and his chemical engineering major his senior year, graduating elsewhere in another subject after WWII.

In the middle of the summer of 1940, McCrory relocated to Camp Blanding, Florida. He asked to join the Army Air Corps, volunteering as a pilot, but the air corps needed another navigator. He was sent to the University of Miami to learn celestial navigation. He trained to fly medium bombers, in particular the Martin B26, somewhat akin to the Mitchell B25, the twin- engine bomber the Doolittle Raiders launched on the deck of their aircraft carrier for the surprise raid on Tokyo in April 1942. Over the course of a year, 1942, Australia- based McCrory flew 25 bombing missions. After his tour of the Pacific, McCrory came to Columbia as a navigation instructor.

He lived at 1623 Heyward Street while he commuted to what is now the Columbia Airport, then the Army Air Base, and Columbia Airport was at Owens Field.

McCrory got around socially, but he narrowed his concerns to share with his future wife Sarah Graydon, sister of Gus and Madge. She was about his age, but her field was law, not the military. At the time, there weren't a lot of women lawyers here or anywhere.

The scale of the destruction by atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 convinced the Japanese it was time to throw in the towel. Still stationed in Columbia, McCrory took his discharge in September 1945.

Back in school for civil engineering in the fall of 1945, this time at USC, and back in with Sarah, now his wife, family building became the No. 1 mission. Along came Clint (1946), Raven (1948), Margie (1954), Alice (1956), and Elliott (1959).

Clint was a presidential scholar at MIT, where he was accepted under early decision. He went to Brandeis for his PhD, and is teaching math at UGA in Athens. Raven, PhD from the University of Michigan, teaches computer science at Michigan State. Margie, the prodigal child, went no further than her Ivy League undergraduate degree (University of Pennsylvania) in music. She runs her real estate property management firm, Propcare. Alice is taking a medical leave from the computers at BlueCrossBlueShield. Elliott finished his PhD in physics at Duke. He works at the Fermi Laboratory in Illinois but he is going to Switzerland for what sounds like particle acceleration research, still with the Fermi Lab.

Soon after graduation from USC and a stint in Charlotte, McCrory's construction career took off with the Heslep Company. He stayed with Heslep as a partner until Heslep sold the company to McCrory, about 1960. Like any start- up, even a substantive firm that just changed hands, McCrory took on lots of small jobs.

The big break hit in the early 1960s: Richland Mall. Under the gun with J. B. White's Department Store (owned by Mercantile Stores and Spartanburg's Roger Milliken) on a killer deadline, McCrory couldn't afford to lose even a minute. Once the deadline was missed, White's was contracted to penalize McCrory $1,000 every day until completion. McCrory Construction finished on time with a respectable profit, enough to attract the attention of big- time developers, bond companies, lending institutions and insurance companies who could guarantee completion bonds with a high- performance firm.

McCrory kept up the pace and the expansion through 1985, when he sold the firm and retired. He's been steeped in an enviable mix of learning, reading, and fishing, all the while teaming with Mrs. McCrory to inspire his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.