Kenneth Brown Shearer, 84, died on January 2, 2022, at home in Ridgeland, Mississippi, from acute myelogenous leukemia. He is survived by his wife of 58 years and eleven months, Carolyn Humphreys Shearer, originally of Jefferson County.
Ken Shearer was born on Tuesday, August 24, 1937, to William Harvey Shearer and Beatrice Elvira (Brown) Shearer, on a tenant farm in Coahoma County, Mississippi, a few miles east of Clarksdale. In late 1944, William and Beatrice moved their family, now including Ken, his two older brothers Elmer Leighton Shearer and William Donald Shearer, and his two younger brothers Douglas Wasson Shearer, Sr., and Robert Bentley Shearer, to what would be their family home, an 80-acre farm down Dog Walk Road from the town of Dublin, in southern Coahoma County. By 1946, William had bought the place and built his family a new house, but it was another year before the Shearers got electricity (and another decade for indoor plumbing). On Dog Walk Road, the Shearers farmed cotton, and had a garden, some pigs, a couple of milk cows (the boys could milk by age 7), chickens, and one or two beef cows, but William always worked another job to supplement the farm income. The Shearers attended church at Union Chapel at Cagle's Crossing. Ken was baptized when he was 13 years old.
When he was not chopping or picking cotton as a boy, Ken participated in the 4-H Club (he planted a persistently productive acre of corn), and other activities. But mostly, there was baseball. Ken batted left; he threw right. He played baseball for Dublin High School, on an all-dirt infield. Dublin regularly won the North Delta Championship, and won the Delta Championship several times, including 1953 when Ken was playing. On the south end of Dog Walk Road, two baseball teams could be fielded between the Shearers, the Fortenberrys, and other neighbors, so Ken played baseball most Sunday afternoons (Saturdays were spent working the farm), at the Fortenberrys' field in a cow pasture by Cagle Crossing. Ken would never lose his devotion to baseball.
All five Shearer brothers graduated from Dublin High School, Ken in 1955. Early that summer, his brother Leighton found Ken a job with the Mississippi Southern College grounds department. Ken moved to Hattiesburg and started work and college, enrolling in the summer term at MSC. He began studying history and physical education (coaching), because he wanted to be involved with college athletics. In January 1956, the MSC Athletic Department hired Ken as the baseball manager, beginning his 66-year association with what became Southern Miss Golden Eagles Athletics, and Ken moved into the "Old Rock"--the athletic dorm beneath the east stand of the football stadium. Ken added the assistant football manager and football stadium manager jobs that fall. He also managed the basketball arena during games. In 1959, he was the student assistant first base coach for the baseball team. Ken was always grateful to legendary coaches and administrators, Reed Green, Thad "Pie" Vann, and Clyde "Heifer" Stewart, who astonished him by treating him like he was someone special, and gave him his opportunities in the athletic department.
Ken graduated from MSC on May 31, 1960. He left the next day for United States Marine Corps recruit basic training at Parris Island, determined to be a Marine. After completing advanced combat training at Camp Lejeune, Ken returned to Mississippi in December, and moved to Jackson. He remained on active reserve duty with the Marines until 1965, serving in a reserve artillery unit in Jackson. Ken attained the rank of Corporal, and was section chief for a 105mm Howitzer.
Corporal Shearer met Ethel Carolyn Humphreys in late 1961. She had moved to Jackson after graduating from Jefferson (County) High School in May 1960. Ken and Carolyn were married on February 2, 1963, at Calvary Baptist Church on West Capitol Street, in Jackson. They were members of Calvary for 40 years. Ken served Calvary in many capacities, including teaching Sunday school. In 2005, Ken and Carolyn moved to First Baptist Church of Jackson, where Ken also taught Sunday school. Ken attended services at FBC through 2021, when he was able.
Ken and Carolyn had three sons, Christopher Dale Shearer, Michael Humphreys Shearer, and William Kirk Shearer. The boys were subject to military discipline, to biblical instruction, and to the example of the work ethic personified by their Dad. Ken supported his sons in their every interest, but was especially pleased to coach youth baseball.
Ken, however, did not go into the coaching profession after college, because it was not then a potentially rewarding career path. Ken’s first job after moving to Jackson was with Commercial Credit Corporation. In 1962, he joined Travelers Insurance Company as a bullpen agent. On August 1, 1963, Herschel Brickell hired Ken to work for the Brickell Insurance Agency. For the next 49 and 1/2 years, Ken worked as an independent insurance agent. He obtained his Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter designation. Ken served as President of Brickell Insurance Agency from 1990 to 2011, and also as President of Boyles, Moak, Brickell, Marchetti Insurance. He also served as President of the Jackson Association of Insurance Agents, as President of the Mississippi Society of Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters, and on the Board of Directors for Mississippi Insurance Managers Incorporated. But Ken focused his insurance career on trucking companies. Ken liked insurance, and truckers.
For 62 years, Ken served the University and Southern Miss Athletics in practically every capacity available to an alumnus and by taking on numerous projects for the Southern Miss Alumni Association, Foundation, Athletic Department, M-Club and other groups. Those efforts, too many to recount, were recognized when Ken was named to the Southern Miss Alumni Hall of Fame as one of its charter inductees in 1987, and to the Southern Miss M-Club (athletic) Hall of Fame in 2003. But two projects meant more than most to Ken. In appreciation of the excellent education they received at Dublin School, and in honor of Thomas E. Leggett, the Dublin School superintendent and a graduate of Mississippi State Teachers College, Ken and his brother Leighton founded the Leggett-Shearer Academic Scholarship at USM, for the benefit of deserving students from Attala, Coahoma, Leake and surrounding counties.
In appreciation of his life-long association with the 1958 UPI College Division National Champions Mississippi Southern football team, for which he served as a manager, Ken co-founded the 1958 National Championship Football Scholarship at USM, with players Richard E. Johnston and John Perkins. In 1978, Ken and close friend, USM Sports Information Director, Robert "Ace" Cleveland, had organized the first reunion of that 1958 championship team. At the 40th reunion in 1998, the 1958 team presented Ken with a 1958 National Championship ring, and named him the team’s first honorary member. In 1958, Ken had refused to accept a ring because, in his words, he was just the manager. At the 40th reunion, permanent 1958 team captain Richard Johnston explained that Ken was presented with a ring to rectify that wrong, in appreciation for Ken's services as team manager, as the unofficial team historian, for keeping the 1958 team members connected over the years, and for making sure that Mississippi Southern’s 1958 National Championship football team is remembered.
Ken’s interests were not limited to family, country, baseball and Southern Miss. Ken joined the Jackson Jaycees in 1962. He was grateful for his membership in the Jaycees, which provided the best civic training, through some 300 civic projects a year. Ken served on the Board of the Jackson Touchdown Club, and on the Board for the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. In 1968, Ken was one of the founding members of the Breakfast Optimist Club, and he remained an Optimist all his life. Ken’s most important civic project as an Optimist may have been helping to found the Mississippi Regional Blood Center in 1979, despite significant financial obstacles, and surprising opposition. Ken was the second-ever donor to MRBC, on the day its Fondren location opened, even though his arm swelled after the nurse punctured an artery, making him a curiosity to the medical students at University Medical Center.
Ken was the author of two books. In 1978, he published Gross-Shearer: The Descendants of William Dunbar Gross and Isham Shearer, including his own family. In 2018, he published Between the Bayous: The History of Dublin, Mississippi, where he and his brothers were reared by William and Beatrice. Ken also expressed his interest in history for many years, as a contributing member of the Mississippi Historical Society.
Ken Shearer was diagnosed with leukemia early in January 2021. He underwent chemotherapy treatment over most of last year. But he was able to watch nearly every Southern Miss baseball and football game on his television or computer, and he made sure he had done everything necessary for Carolyn, and that he would leave nothing undone for his family. "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6. Ken was prepared and ready. He had finished the job, like Ken Shearer always did.
Ken Shearer was preceded in death by his son Michael, by his parents William and Beatrice, by his stepmother Lurlene Lowe Stallings DuBard Shearer, by his brothers Leighton, Don, and Doug, and by his nephew Douglas Wasson Shearer, Jr.
In addition to his wife Carolyn, Ken is survived by his brother Robert and Robert's wife Mary Clarenteen Shearer of Purvis, by his sons Dale of Ridgeland and Kirk of San Jose, California, by his daughters-in-law Janet Saul Shearer (Dale) and Mai Thuy Shearer (Kirk), by his grandchildren Mary Katherine Shearer and Samuel Dalen Shearer (Dale and Janet), and Amelia Grace Shearer (Kirk and Mai), by his step-grandchildren J'lee Mareina-Frances Lindsey (Michael), and Eric Davis Tom and Bruce Ivan Tom (Kirk and Mai), and by many nieces, nephews, and other family members.
There will be a visitation for family and friends on Friday, January 7, 2022, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Parkway Funeral Home, 1161 Highland Colony Parkway, Ridgeland, Mississippi 39157 (https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/ridgeland-ms/kenneth-shearer-10510805). Funeral services for family and friends will be held on Saturday, January 8, 2022, at Parkway Funeral Home, beginning at 11:00 a.m., with a visitation beginning at 10:00 a.m. Pallbearers will be Scott D. Bishop of Coppell, Texas, Brian Wilton Brown of Brookhaven, Benjamin J. Green of Hattiesburg, J. Brent Huber of Flowood, E. Jason Kitchens of Gulfport, and Robert Leighton Shearer of Batesville.
Honorary pallbearers for Ken Shearer are J. Anthony Bernamonti of Madison, George E. Forkin of Ridgeland, Richard Johnston of Biloxi, John Hunter Nance of Diamondhead, R. Jeffrey Shearer of Batesville, and J. Kiley Thames of Ridgeland.
In memory of Kenneth B. Shearer, the family suggests that those who are able donate blood to Mississippi Blood Services at its locations in Flowood, Cleveland and Oxford, Mississippi; or that memorial gifts be made to Mississippi Blood Services, 115 Tree Street, Flowood, MS 39232 (https://msblood.com/). Memorial gifts may also be made to The 1958 Championship Team Endowment, of the USM Athletic Foundation, 118 College Drive No. 5017, Hattiesburg, MS 39406 (southernmiss.com/athleticfoundation); to the Leggett-Shearer Scholarship Endowment, of the USM Foundation, 118 College Drive No. 5210, Hattiesburg, MS 39406 (https://www.usmfoundation.com/); and to the Mississippi Historical Society, P.O. Box 571, Jackson, MS 39205-0571 (https://www.mississippihistory.org/support).
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