Clinton E. Legette

Clinton Erskine LeGette, age 84, of Piedmont Crossing Retirement Community, Thomasville, NC died on April 4, 2017. His Memorial service, led by Pastor Matthew Miller, will be held at 3:00 pm, First Lutheran Church, State Street, Lexington, NC on Friday, April 7, 2017. Committal will be at Lexington City Cemetery following the Memorial Service. The family will see friends in the Family Life Center at 1:30 pm before the service, or at the home. Mr. LeGette was an active member at First Lutheran Church, serving as a Sunday School Teacher and a Church Council President several times.  He was leader of the Tuesday Morning Bible Study and breakfast for many years. A Greensboro native, Mr. LeGette was born on July 21, 1932 to Erskine Wood LeGette and Evelyn LeGette Coble. Mr. LeGette attended Greensboro Public Schools and received a football Scholarship to Lees-McRae College. After one year, he joined the U.S. Army in 1954 where he served in the Army Security Agency in Germany for thirty-three months. Mr. LeGette entered East Carolina College in 1956 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in History and English and a Master’s Degree in Education Administration.  He was honored at East Carolina by being named Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities. Mr. LeGette taught school in New Bern for one year when he was named elementary principal in Vanceboro.  He moved back to New Bern and remained an elementary principal until 1967 when he accepted a high school principalship in Stanly County, NC. Mr. LeGette remained a high school principal for twenty-three years serving Gibsonville High School, Lexington Senior High School and Walter Williams High School in Burlington, N.C.  He retired from Williams and remained out of education for two years when he was named principal at Blacksburg High in Virginia. He retired once again in 1993. Mr. LeGette received a number of honors while serving as a high school principal including the Outstanding Citizens award while in Lexington, the Phi Delta Kappa Public School Professional Educator Award at Blacksburg, Va and the award of Excellence in Education from the Christiansburg / Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce. Mr. LeGette is survived by his wife of fifty-nine years, Mary Lou Wyrick LeGette; his daughters, Noel LeGette Morris and husband, Rev. Michael Morris of Ocean Isle Beach, NC, Mary Blair LeGette of Stuart, Florida, and her long-term companion, Tom Drengacz of Colusa, California; one grandchild, Elizabeth Traci Morris Brenneman and husband, Josh of Birmingham, Alabama. He was preceded in death by his parents, his step-father, James Clifford Coble, one sister, Sylvia Ann Coble King Bassett of Cody, Wyoming; and his oldest daughter, Traci Ann LeGette, who died in 1979. In Lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the First Lutheran Church Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 308, Lexington, NC 27293 or to Piedmont Crossing, 100 Hedrick Drive, Thomasville, NC 27360, or to Hospice of Davidson County, 200 Hospice Way, Lexington, NC 27292.