By Bill Rauch
A standing room only crowd of about 500 gathered along the shores of the Beaufort River last Sunday to celebrate the life of one of Beaufort’s greats. Steve Brown passed away peacefully two weeks ago, and his wife, Jean, and their four children Stephanie, Kelsey, Mitchell, and Wade jointly hosted the celebratory event.
Steve Brown ran restaurants and a catering service in Beaufort in the 1980’s and 90’s and 00’s and 10’s until his health began to slip away from him. He also, as a volunteer, ran the Baptist Church of Beaufort’s formidable kitchen during those years, which was an enormous gift to his church. But that’s just the beginning. As readers will soon see, there was a great deal more to the man.
Beaufort Mayor pro-tem Mike McFee and City Councilman Neil Lipsitz were there last Sunday, as was W.R. “Skeet” Von Harten, twice Beaufort County’s Council Chairman and the perennial chairman of its all-important “Save the Bases” committees. So was Modern Jewelers’ Kevin Cuppia, godfather of Beaufort’s Bay Street merchants.
“Steve had the light” Cuppia said at the cookies, crabs and lemonade reception after the formal ceremony, “and we need to keep that light burning in Beaufort.”
Longtime Port Royal Municipal Court Judge Jim Grimsley was there, too, with his wife, Josette. Some years back, the Grimsleys were moving out of a Waddell Gardens cul-de-sac just as the Browns were moving in.
“And reflective of his remarkable generosity,” Judge Grimsley recalled, “Steve brought us dinner that night!”
Ed Duryea, a pillar of Steve’s beloved Baptist Church of Beaufort, was there, too, with his wife Cindy. Duryea, Beaufort Mayor Henry Chambers’ most effective city manager, explained a little of what Steve Brown’s “light” was.
“Steve had a group,” Duryea recalled, “I don’t know who they were. They were angels. And if someone was in need, Steve would hear about it, and if it was five hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars for a legitimate reason, the money would appear, and it would be given, and no one would ever know its source.”
Many times, in my own experience, the “source” was mostly Steve Brown himself. In 2005, for example, Category 5 Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast from New Orleans to Biloxi. Beaufort wanted to help.
As Beaufort’s mayor at the time, I called the Mississippi Municipal League to ask what town that had been hurt might Beaufort “adopt.” The voice on the phone said, “Long Beach” and he gave me Long Beach’s mayor’s name and phone number. Of course, the phone didn’t work. But, by Providence, Captain Perry Hall, who was also there for Steve last Sunday, stopped by my office to say he was going down to New Orleans to help. I asked Captain Perry if he would find Long Beach Mayor Billy Skellie and get him on a phone.
The next day Mayor Skellie was on the phone. “What do you need, Mayor?” I asked.
“Chainsaws,” he said. “As many men with chainsaws as you can get me.” So, I put out the word and 125 of Beaufort’s best answered the call, and the next weekend the “Beaufort Chainsaw Brigade” was on the road to Long Beach.
Who stepped up to feed this gang? Who, on a couple of days’ notice, arranged for a refrigerator truck full of enough food to completely feed for three days the whole company, and assorted Long Beach residents, and other itinerant volunteers too? And who dispatched it, and a retired U.S. Army field cook named Eddie too, to keep the field kitchen rolling providing three squares a day?
Steve Brown.
Did anyone ever see a bill for those services?
Never.
Beaufort’s longtime Representative to the South Carolina Legislature, Shannon Erickson, was there, too.
“Steve was always calling up for something,” she recalled affectionately. “Someone needed help with their Social Security, or someone needed bunk beds? Steve was on the phone. He took care of people.”
Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t just the wheels — the judges and the business-owners and the elected officials — who came to the river’s edge to honor Steve Brown’s memory last Sunday. The guy who changes the oil in your car, and the lady who stitches your shirt at the dry cleaners, and the guy with the prosthetic, and the lady who keeps the books at the used car lot, and the guy who shows up when you call the plumber were there too. Steve knew them all, and they all loved Steve Brown.
Gathered in the shade of a live oak after the formal ceremony, and joyfully telling Steve stories among themselves, were 20 or so of Steve’s helpers from when he catered events. They were wearing matching blue T-shirts with Steve’s signature “How’s your attitude?” greeting on their backs.
“Why?” I asked them, “was Steve’s team always so good natured when they worked?”
“You think he fed you?” Kelly Lesesne said to the giggles of the others. “He fed us too!”
“Sometimes,” another of Steve’s servers added, “after an event there’d be some turkeys left over and Steve would say, ‘Take one. Take it home. Feed your family.’”
Nan Brown Sutton, Steve’s only living sibling and the owner of Lulu Burgess, the legendary gift shop on Beaufort’s Bay Street was, of course, there too.
“Steve was one of a kind,” she said a bit sadly. “He was always giving, and never taking care of himself.”
Bill Rauch was the Mayor of Beaufort from 1999 to 2008 and has twice won awards from the S.C. Press Association for his Island News columns. He can be reached at TheRauchReport@gmail.com.
