Six Degrees of Dreher

Warner and the love of his life, Linda, on a motorized dugout canoe on their way to an island off the coast of Belize to celebrate New Year’s Eve 1999.

We used to have “executive” meetings at The Columbia Star back when the four of us; Warner as publisher, my mother and Warner’s sister Mimi as editor, Linda as financial manager, and me as general manager; were running things. Calling them “executive” meetings was a bit of a stretch, but we all appreciated the irony of it.

We had these meetings about once a month. Linda would come prepared with all kinds of reports—profit/loss, ad sales, and basically anything to do with money as she was “Queen of the Dough.” I had the latest information on our distribution, what stories were in the pipeline, how the website was doing, and general day-to-day stuff.

Warner and Mimi brought themselves.

They’d long since earned the right to bring nothing but “sage wisdom” to these meetings. They also earned the right to call our meetings to order. They took turns and always did it the same way. While Linda and I shuffled through our reports, inevitably one of them would kick off the agenda with the same question…

Warner (second from left) is honored in 2015 as A.C. Flora’s first soccer coach with original team members Sam Yates, Frank Barton, and Harvey Helman.

“Do you know who just died?” And there it was — meeting called to order.

They could have saved us all some time by checking the obits or—a little later—Googling it, but where’s the fun in that? So for the next 15 to 20 minutes, Warner and Mimi would lead us in a discussion to try to figure out who just died.

One thing you must know is that Warner and Mimi knew EVERYONE in Columbia and just about everyone who had the slightest tie to Columbia. Owning a local weekly newspaper certainly helped with this vast knowledge, but the simple truth is that Warner and Mimi were both graduates of Dreher High School, the center of the universe when it comes to Columbia, South Carolina. Any Dreher graduates, at least those from the original school, know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, many of you have heard of “Six Degrees of Bacon.” That’s the game where any actor in Hollywood can be tied to a Kevin Bacon movie in six connections or less. Well, when Warner or Mimi started our meetings with “Do you know who just died?”, Linda and I knew we were about to settle in for a game of “Six Degrees of Dreher.”

Warner and his sister, Mimi Maddock, partners in crime in the Six Degrees of Dreher.

Here’s an example (and all names are purely fictional to protect the innocent).

1. Was it Bitsy Baumgartner?

It seems all females from Dreher back in the day were named Bitsy or Bunsy or Weezy or anything other than Pam or something normal like that. 2. No! I’m talking about the fellow who graduated a couple of years before me.

3. Did he play football?

Yes.

4. Did he have red hair?

Yes.

5. Was his father Daddy’s prayer partner who dated Pookie Parsons but married Winnie Williams and taught history and PE at Dreher before he retired to run the soda fountain at the Piggly Wiggly and then bought an RV and travelled the country before he hit a deer in Wisconsin and had to come back home?

Yes.

6. It was Jimmy Westerson.

Warner, The Adventurer

Yes!

Meeting called to order.

Unless it was a lunch meeting. Then we’d have to eat first because no one can play “Six Degrees of Dreher” on an empty stomach.

I have to admit, it could be a frustrating process waiting for the sixth degree to kick in when you were on deadline.

I used to dread those meetings. They took up a large portion of my day and added significantly to my stress level.

Now I’d give anything to watch those two probe their memory banks once again. At the time, I had no idea what a treasure that was. I can’t remember a single business item we discussed, but I’ll always remember Warner and Mimi figuring out who just died.

I’d like to think that somewhere in Columbia another “executive meeting” took place at some office earlier this week and two “chief executives” called it to order just like Warner and Mimi while their other executives fumbled with their reports and data.

Warner, Co-Captain for the Mighty Dreher Blue Devils in 1957

But when they remembered Warner they were going to need way more than six degrees, not to simply remember him, but to honor a life well lived.

I picture the conversation going something like this…

• He was the fellow who was a track and football star at Dreher.

• He went to Sewanee for a couple of years but came home to the University of South Carolina to help pay for his little sister’s college education.

• He was a scholar, had a PhD from the University of Michigan, and was the smartest man I ever knew.

• He started the soccer program at A.C. Flora.

• He rode a motorcycle through Central America, travelled the world over, joined the Peace Corps, and taught in Africa.

• He put on legendary slide shows.

• He rocked a beard before anyone ever heard of Duck Dynasty.

• At The Star, he doubled circulation, modernized production, and had the foresight to change the name from The Star Reporter to The Columbia Star before anyone knew what a search engine was.

Linda and Warner at a Torch Club Convention in 2008.

• He was trusting enough to hand over The Star (and his retirement) to his nephew.

• He was man enough to pull off a long ponytail and wear a kilt — authentically, mind you— in public.

• And he loved. He loved his kids, Chai and Jyoti. He loved his friends, which are too numerous to mention without leaving someone out. He loved his Star family. He loved his parents, Miller and Mary. He loved his sister. He loved the Sosbee family. He loved his Gamecocks and his Michigan Wolverines. He loved his four-legged children, Gorbie and Deuce.

And most of all he loved and adored his wife of 32 years, Linda Sosbee. She travelled the world with him. They hiked a perilous trail in India into the Himalayas to the source of the Ganges and sipped champagne with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop. They visited 47 of the 50 states and most of the small towns in South Carolina.

No destination was too big or too small.

That just proves Warner and Linda are definitely soulmates because nobody could travel that much together and not kill each other.

Warner in 2004 at his desk producing content for The Columbia Star.

They call the battle with dementia the long goodbye. It was Warner’s final journey and true to form, Linda was by his side from the start of this trip to the very end. His son, Chai, was also there making cross country trips from Reno, Nevada, just to take short walks with his dad and make sure Warner wasn’t alone when Linda needed a little rest.

Warner had a beautiful mind and it is my belief that mind was restored to all its glory when he was welcomed into heaven by Mimi, Miller, and Mary; his cousins, Carter and Frank; Mr. and Mrs. Sosbee; and his two beloved dogs, Gorbi and Deuce. I know they are showering him with love and getting him ready for his next great adventure.