Richard Jobie Dixon

GEORGETOWN -- Richard Jobie Dixon, resident of DeBordieu Colony, Georgetown, passed away Sunday, July 3, 2011, at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, after a long, but ceaselessly optimistic, battle against lung cancer. He was 67.

Dixon was born and raised in Sumter. A 1961 graduate of Edmunds High School, he was elected president and friendliest member of the senior class. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1965 and served as president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. Dixon moved to Atlanta in 1973 and joined best friends Jim and Jan Pringle to form Pringle Dixon Pringle, which from the 1970s through the 1990s would became one of the south's leading advertising agencies. He settled in Georgetown in 1998, working as a marketing consultant, eventually writing a book about creative thinking titled "Innovate, Leap Out of the Bowl," and hosting an online radio talk show of the same name.

He was well-known for his love of family, golf and fishing, boundless optimism, enduring faith, and an off the wall and infectious sense of humor. It was the rare day, whether caring for a very sick wife, or even during his last month of life, that he wasn't looking forward to the future with a twinkle in his eye.

Jobie Dixon is survived by his children, Christopher Jobie Dixon of Charleston, Watts Stroman Dixon of Greensboro, N.C., and Jean Louise Dixon of Potsdam, Germany. Grandchildren include Miles Alan Dixon, Lucy Victoria Dixon and Frederick Charles Dixon. Also surviving are one brother, Dr. Robert L. Dixon of Winston-Salem, N.C., and one sister, Linda Hayes of Sumter.

He was predeceased by his loving wife, Celeste Williams Cortez Dixon, a native of Jamaica; and parents, Leland Witherspoon Dixon, former business manager for The Sumter Daily Item, and Louise Bateman Dixon, a primary school teacher, both of Sumter.

The funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Mary's Catholic Church, 317 Broad St., Georgetown, directed by the Georgetown Chapel of McKenzie Funeral Home, (843) 546-0198.

The immediate family will remain after the service to receive family and friends.

An online family register is at McKenzieFH.com.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to SOS Children's Villages, Jamaica, which offers orphaned and abandoned children <0x2014> regardless of race, nationality or creed <0x2014> a permanent home and prepares them for an independent life, https://help.sos-usa.org.