Bennett Brown The 2008 South Carolina Business Hall of Fame - presented by BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina with major support from Delta Dental, AT&T, South Carolina Bank and Trust, and UCI Medical Affiliates - was held on Thursday, May 22, in the convention center. The honorees were the late Robert E. Coleman, former chairman and CEO of Riegel Textile Corporation, the late Bennett A. Brown, former chairman and CEO of C&S/Sovran, and the late Charles E. Fraser, visionary developer of Hilton Head Island.

Bennett Brown of

C&S Bank and NationsBank

What eventually became Charlotte- based Bank of America was C&S Bank in Atlanta under Bennett Brown of South Carolina.

Brown was born in 1929 in Kingstree, S.C., the youngest of five children. His father died when he was nine, but a family friend came forward with a loan for Brown to study business at Presbyterian College. The family friend was part of New York's Chemical Bank, where Brown went to work after graduating from P.C. in 1950. A year later, Brown was in the U.S. Army in Germany.

Robert Coleman After two years in the military, Brown returned to banking, but this time he joined the Federal Reserve in Atlanta. After another two years, he joined the collections department at C&S, still in Atlanta.

In 1966, Brown and his wife Mary Alice moved their family to Augusta, where Brown became president of C&S of Augusta.

Brown returned to the bank's Atlanta headquarters. He was named interim president in early 1978, and that was changed to president and CEO of C&S Bank in 1979.

By 1990, Brown was developing C&S as a player in interstate banking, adding C&S of S.C. and Florida banks. Soon, Virginia- based Sovran Bank was also part of the firm, and the name changed to C&S/Sovran.

In July 1991, Charlotte's NCNB merged with C&S/ Sovran, and NationsBank was born.

Brown retired from the bank in 1992. He died on August 8, 1997, in Atlanta.

Robert Coleman of

Riegel Textile Corporation

As CEO and chairman of Greenville- based Riegel Textile Corporation, Robert Coleman took the company's annual sales from $237 million in 1975 to $429 million in 1984. By the end of 1984, Riegel was sold to Mount Vernon Mills, the occupant of the building that became the South Carolina State Museum along the Columbia Canal.

Charles Fraser The youngest of nine children, Coleman was born in 1925 in Travelers Rest, S.C., where his father was a Baptist minister. When Coleman was three years old, his father died in a drowning accident. The family soon moved to Greenville.

Coleman graduated from Greenville High School in 1942, and almost immediately he enlisted in the Marine Corps. During World War II, he served in the Pacific and in North China. He matriculated out of the military in August 1946, and in the fall, Coleman enrolled in Limestone College (Gaffney, S.C.) as one of 25 veterans in an otherwise all- girls school.

He transferred to N.C. State where he earned his degree in textile technology in 1950.

Coleman was hired by the Graniteville Company to manage the night shift at its Sibley Mill in Augusta, Ga. In 1955, Coleman joined Riegel Textile Corporation, and he became its vice president for sales in 1961 while he and his wife Jane and their three children were living in Connecticut. In 1968, he formed the Riegel Southern Executive Offices in Greenville, S.C., to gain proximity to many of the company's plants.

After managing the sale to Mount Vernon Mills in 1984, Coleman started a consulting business and continued to serve on several corporate boards. He also served the non- profit sector, to include the Greater Greenville YMCA, the Greenville Hospital, Textile Hall Corporation, and others.

He died in Greenville on March 28, 2008.

Charles Fraser of Sea Pines

Charles Fraser loved lighthouses, so he followed his passion in the design and construction of Harbour Town's lighthouse with a straight line of sight at the 18th green. Fraser's lighthouse is counted among the most recognizable sports images in the world today.

Fraser was born in 1929 in Hinesville, Ga., where he graduated from its public high school. He attended Presbyterian College, and graduated with a degree in business from the University of Georgia in 1950. Three years later, he had his law degree from Yale University.

Fraser's father, a military general, and a small group of fellow investors bought a large portion of Hilton Head Island in 1950. General Fraser was in the timber business on the side. The island property was bought for $75 an acre.

While he was in law school, Fraser helped his father's timber operation in the summer. And when he returned to Yale, he took courses on land- use covenants and deed restrictions.

Soon after earning his law degree, Fraser was in the Air Force assigned to the Pentagon. The Washington assignment allowed him weekend trips home to Hilton Head Island.

By 1956, Fraser began the process of consolidating what he could with his family's Hilton Head Island property. He organized the Sea Pines Company. He hired Hideo Sasaki, chairman of the landscape architecture department at Harvard, to design the master plan at Sea Pines (Sasaki Associates is overseeing the master plan of USC's Columbia campus and the Innovista).

In 1958, he opened the William Hilton Inn. Soon, the island's first golf course was complete. Although not a golfer himself, Fraser tied the future of the Sea Pines Company with golf.

Fraser married Mary Wyman Stone of Greenville in 1963. They had two daughters.

The big break for Fraser's development as a golf resort was the first Heritage in the fall of 1969, which was won by Arnold Palmer.

Fraser is also credited with the developments of South Carolina's Kiawah Island, Amelia Island (Fla.), River Hills (N.C.), Brandermill (Va.), Big Canoe (Ga.), and other high- end resort and retirement communities.

Fraser sold his interest in Sea Pines in 1983. He died on December 15, 2002, a victim of a vacation boating accident.