Charles Warren Nanney, 88, who formerly served churches in Greenville and Newberry, died Nov. 22, 2009, in Forest City, N.C.
Born in 1921, the youngest of 17 half-siblings, he grew up in Union Mills, N.C., and entered Wake Forest College in 1938. There he pursued literature and mathematics, but with World War II imminent he enlisted as an aviation cadet in 1941, pursuing what became a lifelong passion for flying. As a second lieutenant celestial navigator in the Army Air Corps, he served first as an aviation instructor, then as navigator of a B-17 bomber outfitted for air-sea rescue. With the 5th Air Force in the 3rd Emergency Rescue Squadron, he completed 34 missions in the Pacific theater, flying his final mission photographing Hiroshima after its bombing.
Returning home a 1st lieutenant, he and his wife Rachel moved to Raleigh, N.C., in 1946, where he completed a degree in textile engineering, then returned to Spindale Mills where he became head of the industrial engineering department. Feeling called to the ministry, however, he resigned from the textile industry, and he and his wife Rachel took their young family to Louisville, Ky., to Southern Baptist Seminary, where he earned a postgraduate degree.
After graduation in 1955, he became pastor of Swepsonville Baptist Church, near Burlington, N.C. The following year, Nanney accepted a pastorate in Greenville at Hampton Heights Baptist Church, where he served for 16 years. In 1974 he became pastor of First Baptist Church of Newberry, where he ministered until retiring in 1981 after heart bypass surgery.
He was predeceased by his first wife, Rachel Nanney, in 2005, and his second wife, Grace McCaskill Nanney, in 2007.
Despite recurrent health problems, Nanney continued in volunteer ministry at his home community in Rutherford County, N.C. Musically gifted, he composed, published, and recorded sacred songs. He wrote and published privately a family history as well as a volume, soon forthcoming, of his sermons, poems, and stories of local history.
Survivors include three daughters, two grandsons and four great-grandchildren.