Ordie Brown (center) received the state’s highest civilian honor from Gov. Henry McMaster. Pictured with Brown and McMaster are (from left) ECSC President and CEO Mike Couick, Edisto Electric board chair Doug Reeves, Ordie Brown’s children Benjamin Brown and Ordrine Jordan, and Edisto Electric CEO David Felkel.
Photo by Josh P. Crotzer
On Sept. 26, 2012, I was on the cooperatives’ second Honor Flight trip to Washington, D.C., and our group was headed to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. My legs and shoulders were feeling the length of that eventful day, especially once we hit a steep hill that led up to the cemetery.
It was then that I noticed Ordie Brown, the 83-year-old vice chairman of Edisto Electric’s Board of Trustees, pushing his wheelchair-bound brother to our destination. I asked if I could help, but the offer was met with rejection and body language that let me know I shouldn’t insist.
Ordie had been with his brother, John K, all day, making sure the WWII veteran who served under Gen. George Patton saw every monument and memorial they had come to see. It was an act of service that he took up dutifully and lovingly.
Edisto Electric Cooperative members have been fortunate to benefit from Ordie Brown’s faithful service for the past 48 years. In 1974, a time when many electric cooperative boards still did not represent the people they served, Ordie became Edisto Electric’s first African American trustee and one of the first in South Carolina.
Current Edisto Electric board chairman Doug Reeves, who had joined the board four years earlier, says Ordie was the ideal person to fill such a crucial role. He was a respected, educated man of faith who knew his community of St. George as well as anyone could.
“Ordie is an outstanding person who was always looking out for our members,” says Reeves.
“That’s exactly what we needed on our board.”
Born in St. George in 1928, Ordie attended the Rosenwald School there. After high school, he joined the Army and served as a military police officer during the Korean War. Ordie then spent a few years in New York and Florida before returning to his hometown, where he farmed soybeans and worked as a carpenter. He married the girl with whom he used to walk to school, Cornie, and in their 57 years together raised a family and were pillars of their community.
In March, Ordie retired from the Edisto Electric board as the longest-serving African American cooperative trustee in the state’s history and likely the longest-serving anywhere in the country. Ordie also helped facilitate local, state and federal elections for 20 years as a member of the Dorchester County Election Commission and was the founding organizer of the Reevesville American Legion Post. He currently is a member of the Williams Memorial Alumni Association, a group charged with restoring the St. George Rosenwald School into a museum and community center.
Last month, I was fortunate to witness Gov. Henry McMaster present Ordie with the state’s highest civilian honor, the Order of the Palmetto. It’s an award recognizing the many acts of service and sacrifice he has made for the people of South Carolina.
But in my mind, nothing exemplifies Ordie’s commitment to his community like the devotion to his brother that I witnessed on that hill 10 years ago.