Jack Monroe Kneece, Jr., 80, died Monday, July 10, 2017 at Lexington Medical Center Emergency department around 1:14 pm. He a had a serious infection that had spread. You are invited to attend his memorial service at 2 o'clock, Friday, July 14, 2017 at Shives Funeral Home, Colonial Chapel, 5202 Colonial Drive, Columbia. The visitation will begin prior to the service beginning at 1 o'clock.

Jack led a very interesting life and he shall be missed. In his very early years, he worked as a roving reporter for WNOK radio. Later, at USC, he was the editor of the Literary Magazine. Most of his adult life he spent in the newspaper business at first a cub reporter and progressed through many newspaper jobs. When he lived in San Mateo, near San Francisco, he was a columnist covering news with a humorist approach. Jack was well read and traveled.

He worked for the old Columbia Record, the Charlotte Observer, the Times Picayune in New Orleans, the Washington DC Times, the AP, the UP, the UPI and other papers. In his long career, he interviewed many world leaders including John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Jack lived in Sumter, New Orleans (French Quarter), Washington, DC, San Mateo, California, Fairbanks, Alaska, Singapore, Atlanta, GA, among other places. He traveled all over the world.

In his late teens, he hitch-hiked across the country to California. Jack loved cars and motorcycles. Over his life he owned about 18 VWs, including two Karmann Ghias, a Jaguar XK140 and a very clean 1950 Mercury. He was a great writer, but fancied himself a pretty good shade tree mechanic and woodworker. He loved to work with his hands and to read.

Churchill and Thomas Wolfe were among his heroes. He read and re-read all of Wolfe's work, and visited his home in Asheville, NC numerous times. He came home and worked for a time as an instructor in the journalism school at USC. Over his lifetime, he wrote and published five books, including, "Family Treason", "The Ghost Army" and others. Later in his life he lived in a small South Carolina town, where he wrote and read books. Jack visited his friends in Greece before suffering a severe stroke at home in October 2015, that left him bed ridden with a paralyzed left side. He fought to the end.

So, look homeward angel; you can go home again to be with Mama and Daddy, Bobby, Billy, and uncles Otis, Bob, Junior and RF; your granddads, Marvin Jenkinson and Edgar Salter Kneece. You leave your two siblings, Patricia Ann Kneece and Edgar (Ed) Kneece; niece, Marjorie Parks Kneece; nephew, Bryan Edgar Kneece, as well as many cousins and good friends. We all love you. We miss you already.