Former mayor of Mount Olive dies at 91
By Steve Herring
Published in News on June 7, 2016 1:46 PM
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B.R.
MOUNT OLIVE -- A moment of silence in memory of the late B.R. "Ruff" Huggins was held before the start of Monday night's Mount Olive Town Board session.
Huggins, a World War II veteran, former mayor, former senior vice president at Southern Bank and Trust Co. and dedicated community volunteer, died Monday.
He was 91.
Funeral arrangements are being handled by Tyndall Funeral Home.
Huggins was preceded in death by his wife of 57 years, Mae Mellons Huggins, on March 3, 2012.
They have two daughters, Candy Huggins Davis and Connie Huggins Barber, and a granddaughter, Candace Rhiannon Barber.
A native of Williamsburg County, S.C., Huggins moved to Mount Olive in 1970 to work at Southern Bank.
He retired in 1992 and spent the years since then volunteering for many community projects.
There have been few areas of community life in Mount Olive that Huggins has not played a role in, including the new Steele Memorial Library and Kids World playground at Westbrook Park.
Huggins served as mayor from 1995 to 1999. He was appointed interim mayor in 2003, ran for re-election and continued to serve until 2007 when he did not seek re-election.
He was a member of the town planning board for 14 years and served as chairman.
In July 2015, the town paid tribute to Huggins for his efforts to improve its wastewater treatment plant by naming it the B.R. "Ruff" Huggins Regional Wastewater Reclamation Facility.
Huggins thanked the town for the honor and said he hoped officials could continue to work together to move the town forward.
Huggins was active with Friends of the Parks and Friends of Steele Memorial Library, both of which he helped to form, the Mount Olive Area Chamber of Commerce, Mount Olive Area Historical Society and Mount Olive Community Development Corp.
He also served on the town's airport committee.
He was an active member of First Baptist Church.
Reared on a farm, Huggins graduated from Johnsville High School.
He was a high school senior when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
In May following his graduation from high school, Huggins, who was 17, traveled to Charleston, S.C., and worked with a construction company in the Navy Yard and then civil service. By that time, he had turned 18 and registered for the draft.
As a defense worker he was temporary deferred.
But after turning 19, he was drafted and entered the Navy.
After the war, he was assigned to a detail in Charleston, S.C., charged with decommissioning ships. He left the service in 1946.
He attended Erskine College in South Carolina under the G.I. Bill and earned a business degree.
Huggins first went to work with Universal CTI Credit Corp. in Florence, S.C. He was with the company for almost 20 years and was in the Kinston office when he left the company because he did not want to be transferred.
That is when he went to work for Southern Bank.