Harold Walter Syfrett, 96, of Walterboro, died April 13, 2020.
A native of Orangeburg, he was a graduate of North Greenville Junior College, Wofford College, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He was instrumental in helping to begin what later became Cudd Memorial Baptist and Bethany Baptist churches in Spartanburg. In more than 30 years of ministry, he served as registrar and an instructor at North Greenville; pastor of Abney Memorial Baptist Church, Greenwood; associational missionary at Abbeville Baptist Association; Baptist student director at Lander and Erskine colleges; campus minister at The Citadel, Medical University of South Carolina, College of Charleston, and The Baptist College of Charleston. In the U.S. Navy during World War II, he served on the USS Yorktown. He was chaplain of the USS Yorktown Association for four decades. In 2017, Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum designated part of the ship’s library as a chapel and named it in his honor.
Survivors include five children, 12 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife of 67 years, Evelyn Marie Taylor Syfrett.