One of this world's kindest, gentlest hearts beat its last on Friday, Dec. 2 -- the heart of William Paul Wright, 88, of Columbia.

Services will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, Dec. 9, at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church with a reception to follow in the Garden Room.

Bill, as he was best known, was born in 1934 in Maud, OK, the third of the five children of the late Ector Americus Wright and Thelma Parnell Wright. He grew up in Oklahoma and Kansas, where, at Stafford High School in Stafford, KN, he was a three-sport athlete: baseball, basketball and football. He played both tight-end and defensive end on the undefeated 1950 state champion Stafford Trojans football team. He also played minor league baseball for a season and even once tried out for the Philadelphia Eagles. His favorite sport to watch, however, was Lady Gamecocks basketball.

Bill served in the U.S. Army from 1955-57 and the U.S. Navy from 1961-63. In 1961, he graduated from Drexel University with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, skills which took him up and down the East Coast and into Mexico and South America. Early in his career he built water treatment plants and breweries in Colombia, Peru and Mexico. It was during this stage of his life when he befriended a lion cub that he named Stanley and brought home to live with him in Pennsylvania.

Bill's career included many project manager roles in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Kentucky, New York and South Carolina. In the late 1970s, for a brief few years, he hung his own shingle for Restorations by Wright. He later returned to construction management, but always enjoyed renovation projects on his own homes as well as furniture in those homes. While living in Maysville, KY, he was named an Honorary Kentucky Colonel for volunteer work in the restoration of Old Washington, KY.

Bill was a lover of local theater and played many roles while also often helping build sets in community theaters wherever he lived, including Town Theatre in Columbia.

Bill was preceded in death by his parents and siblings, Helen, Marvin, Jerry and Sherry.
He was also preceded in death in 2017 by his beloved wife Renee Rosser Wright with whom he shared many adventures and renovation projects during their 38-year marriage. By that marriage, he is survived by one daughter, Anna-Lee Wright and her partner Tommy Court of Riverview, FL, and two stepchildren, Allison Buice Askins and her husband Bob of Columbia and their children Andrew of Detroit, MI, and Abby of Austin, TX, and John Brittain Buice and his children, Harry, Anna, John and Sara Frances, all of Charleston.

He is also survived by the two children of his first marriage, son Steven Thomas Wright and his wife Cheryl and their son Rusty, all of Chicago, and daughter Deborah Wright Grabeldinger of Pelham, AL, and her daughter Madison of Lowell, MA. His unofficially adopted son Jean Claude Harris of Little Egg Harbor, NJ, also survives him.

The family extends its deepest gratitude to the staff of Watercrest Assisted Senior Living, the VA Primary Care Home Health Program and Amedysis Hospice.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Crayton Backpack Ministry of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, 5220 Clemson Ave., Columbia, 29206. Bill never wanted a child to go hungry and often made extra contributions to this ministry when he was still able to attend services at St. Martin's. Checks may be made payable to St. Martin's with "Backpack Ministry" in the memo line.