The State, 5 January 1996

State's senior coroner dies at 84

South Carolina's longest serving coroner was remembered Thursday as both a down-to-earth public servant and as one who was athletic in his earlier years despite a handicap.

Calhoun County Coroner J. Hoyt Shuler, 84, died Tuesday. His funeral was Thursday.

Shuler served as coroner for 39 years and was just one year shy of finishing his final term.

"You couldn't have asked for a nicer person," said Calhoun County Chairman David Summers.

Summers said Shuler rarely talked about his job. But he did mention having to work a bad auto accident that killed some local college students.

"That accident really stuck in his mind," Summers said. "He had daughters who were a little younger."

Calhoun County Administrator Kenneth Rickenbaker said Shuler always worked well with him and the County Council on budget matters.

"He would say, 'whatever the council can do for me.' I admire someone like that," Rickenbaker said.

A lifelong friend, T.C. Moss of Cameron, said Shuler sometimes talked of how difficult it was being a coroner.

"He said the hardest part of his job was telling a parent, a wife, a husband that a loved one had been killed," Moss said. "But it was his job. He did it with the best of his ability."

Moss has fond memories of Shuler. Despite losing an arm at age 9 because of blood poisoning, Shuler was athletic.

"He was an excellent golfer; he beat the tar out of me," Moss said.

Shuler was a Cameron resident who spent 21 years managing the Calhoun County Country Club in addition to his duties as a coroner. He also worked as a farmer.

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Times & Democrat

Longtime Calhoun County Coroner Hoyt Shuler of Cameron dies at 84

Cameron, S.C. - Jesse Hoyt Shuler, 84, of Route 2 Box 48, Cameron, who served as Calhoun County COroner for 39 years, died Tuesday morning at Providence Hospital in Columbia.

The funeral will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at Camerona United Methodist Church, with the Rev. John Preer officiating. Burial will be in Cameron Cemetery.

Shuler was born in Parler, a son of the late Walter Duncan Shuler and Jessie E. Snell Shuler. He attended Wofford College and was a retired farmer and former manager of the Calhoun Country Club. He was a member of the Cameron United Methodist Church, Coroners Association, Elks Lodge #897 of Orangeburg, Cameron Business Men's Club and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Association. He was first married to the late Mildred Clements Shuler.

In 1992 Shuler, a Democrate, ran unopposed for the Calhoun County coroner's office and began serving yet another four-year term.

"He never met a stranger and everybody just thought the world of him," Calhoun County Council Chairman David K. Summers Jr. said Tuesday.

Summers remembered Shuler as a quiet man who never complained about anything, including his physical disability. Shuler's left arm had to be amputated to save his life after he fell out of a tree and developed blood poisoning when he was 9 years old. Despite what many people would consider a handicap, Shuler never thought of it as such and was an accomplished golfer and member of the National Amputee Golf Association.

Survivors include his widow, Leila "Ricky" Smith Shuler of the home; three daughters, Mrs. Elton (Betty) Smith of San Antonio, Texas, Mrs. Jim (Donna) Garrett of Suwanee, Ga., and Mrs. Bill (Camille) Rowell of Peoris, Ark.; two stepsons, Donald J. Smith of Fripp Island and Norman R. Smith of Cameron; a sister, Mrs. Margaret Carter of Orangeburg; 11 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Friends may call at the residence and at Dukes-Harley Funeral Home of Orangeburg.

The family suggests memorials be made to a charity of one's choice.