Kent Graybeal

MARION, VIRGINIA: KENT PAYNE GRAYBEAL, VMI graduate, World War II veteran, community and church leader, loving husband, father and grandfather, passed away peacefully January 27, 2008 in Francis Marion Manor. He was 85. The son of Dr. Avery Bryan Graybeal and Mary Payne Graybeal, he was born in Grassy Creek, North Carolina. The family moved to Marion when he was still in elementary school. He graduated from Marion High School and entered the Virginia Military Institute where he finished in the first post-Pearl Harbor class on his 20th birthday, May 15, 1942. He immediately joined the Army's 102nd Infantry Division as a 2nd Lieutenant. He went on to lead Battery A's 125 men in the Division's 381st Field Artillery Battalion in France and Germany and was on the banks of the Elbe when Russian and American forces met there shortly before the end of World War II. He received a bronze star for service in the European campaign and was honorably discharged from the army as a Major in 1946. He married Marian Lee, sister of VMI classmate and close friend, Frank Lee, of Wichita Falls, Texas, and moved back to Marion to build a career in business in Smyth County. For more than sixty years he was active in the community as President of the Selective Service Board, the Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis and other service organizations and as member of the Finance and Pastoral Committees and Board of Stewards of the United Methodist Church. He and Marian, his wife of 60 years, raised four daughters in Marion. He loved fishing, golf, gardening (his roses were a permanent attraction at the Bank of Marion), VMI, friends, and especially, his church and family. He is survived by his wife, Marian, their four daughters, Carol, Lynn, Lee and Ellen, sons-in-law, David Smith, Reed Helman and Terry Myers, and seven grandchildren, Quincy and Meredith Smith, Rachel and Alex Helman, Nathaniel, Anna and Laura Myers, brother-in-law Frank Lee and his wife Mary Ann. He was preceded in death by his brother, AB Graybeal. Memorial services will be held Thursday, January 31st at 4:00 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church with the Reverend Jeff Lambert and the Reverend Neville Mozingo officiating. The family will receive friends following the service. In lieu of flowers, friends may wish to consider donations to the First United Methodist Church, 115 S. Church Street, Marion, Virginia 24354 or Hospice of Southwest Virginia, 600 West Ridge Road, Wytheville, Virginia 24382, or a charity of their choice. Expressions of sympathy may be made to the family at www.seaverbrown.com. Seaver-Brown Funeral Service and Crematory is serving the Graybeal Family.