The March of Dimes S.C. Chapter wil honor Columbia attorney William C. Boyd of Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd at the Columbia Real Estate Award breakfast December 10. The annual award highlights the outstanding contributions of an individual in the real estate industry.

Chairmen of this year’s award breakfast are Todd Avant of NAI Avant and Lee Mashburn of Mashburn Construction. Tickets for the March of Dimes Real Estate Award breakfast are $150 each, and reservations are available at 252.5200. Funds raised at the breakfast will go to research into the causes and preventions of premature birth.

Last year, 2008, Boyd was selected as the Columbia Chamber of Commerce’s Ambassador of the Year.

This year, Boyd was recognized by South Carolina Lawyers Weekly as a recipient of the inaugural 2009 Leadership in Law award. Best Lawyers in America named him Columbia Real Estate Lawyer of the Year, 2009. For the past year he has been chairman of the S.C. Chamber of Commerce board of directors. Besides holding the position as head of the Waterfront Steering Committee, a blue–chip group pushing for realization of Columbia’s and USC’s development of the Vista down to the shores of the Congaree River, Boyd serves on the executive committee of the Midlands Business Leadership Group. And he is on the board of directors of the Midlands Housing Alliance, which is the organization moving forward with realistic accommodation for the homeless. Full funding for the homeless compound is practically in place. Boyd is included in Chambers USA’s list of S.C.’s leading lawyers in mergers and acquisitions, and he is also listed in the Carolina Super publication.

Boyd was born in Columbia at the Providence Hospital. At the time his father was practicing law with Bennet Shand McGowan, but he left the law for the U.S. Navy during WWII. Boyd has a sister, Anne Dunlap, who is married to Dr. Bernie Dunlap, president at Wofford College in Spartanburg.

From toddler through high school graduation, Boyd lived at the corner of Heyward and Ott, where Columbia Mayor Bob Coble has lived since before he became mayor.

Boyd went to A.C. Moore Elementary School for his first three years of school, but when Rosewood Elementary was annexed into the city, Boyd transferred there for his next three years. After two years at Hand Jr. High, Boyd attended Dreher High, where he ran track and played linebacker and halfback for the varsity football team. In his senior year, he was president of the Dreher student body.

Taking so much time for academics, football and track, Boyd had to drop his morning paper route after almost a year in favor of an acceptable training/sleeping schedule.

For his junior year at Dreher, Boyd’s team won the state championship, losing only to Orangeburg early in the season; and for his senior year, the team finished undefeated. Through it all, Boyd suffered a dislocated shoulder and played a good bit of the time with his shoulder taped like a mummy.

Running the 440 and the 880 for the Dreher track team, Boyd learned what it was like to always have someone in front of him, instilling lessons for future recall.

Among the local luminaries in Boyd’s senior class were developer Alan Kahn, public relations specialist Sam McCuen, and attorney Punky Holler.

After two years in college at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., Boyd transferred to finish at USC with a degree in history. While in undergraduate school in the state capital, Boyd worked for the State Senate, in particular for Sen. Marion Gressette, the “Grey Fox” of Orangeburg County, and the Judiciary Committee. He stayed put for law school, and he continued to work for the Senate while he also worked for his father’s law firm. He graduated from USC Law in 1965 and joined his father’s firm, then Boyd Bruton Knowlton & Tate and soon to become Boyd Knowlton Tate & Finlay, as in Columbia Mayor Kirkman Finlay Jr.

In his fifth decade as an attorney, Boyd reflects mostly on the profound changes in the practice of the profession, to include the evolving emphasis on specialization. He began as a generalist and, for the most part, remains a generalist. For example, he is general counsel for Sonoco Products.

Boyd married while in law school, and his late wife Eve gave birth to three children. Son William, with a PhD and a JD, is teaching law at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Daughter Margaret, a graduate of W&L with an international MBA from USC, is the mother of two. Son John, the youngest, is a lawyer with his father at Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd.

Boyd married a few years ago, and his wife Erwin is overseeing the construction of their new home on Heathwood Circle. She was Erwin Parrot, for about 35 years an agent for artists in NYC before she retired to Chapel Hill, N.C., and met Boyd.

Boyd and his wife have 10 grandchildren, seven from his children and three from hers. Thanksgiving is upon them.