Successful businessman, giving soul and fighter to the end, community and civic leader Burl Williamson Jr. passed away Tuesday, prompting an outpouring of love and condolences from a community he dearly loved.
Perhaps best known for the long-running Clinton-based propane business bearing his family name, Williamson’s involvements in his community were vast.
In 1964, Burl assumed the leadership of the family business at the tender age of 21, over the years innovating and diversifying the business into one that also sold greenhouses and brokered tobacco plants for his customers.
In 2018, Williamson and wife Connie marked the 90th anniversary of B.J. Williamson Inc., praising employees past and present while unveiling a new company logo. The business, started by his father Burl Williamson Sr., was the first to offer propane in Sampson, Johnston, Duplin and Pender counties.
“He was just a prince of a guy,” said Dwight Horne. “He was community-minded and did a lot for everybody and was a salt-of-the-earth kind of person, and it’s hard to find people like that nowadays.”
Their children graduated high school together, and Horne, like many others, was well aware of Williamson through his business dealings and his involvement in Clinton High School athletics. Above all, Horne said Williamson was a good man, fast to assist others.
“He was a good businessman, someone who helped the community in any way he could,” said Horne, “and he will be missed.”
Another who could attest to Williamson’s love of community is Jim Matthews, a lifelong friend of Williamson.
The two knew each other “from the time we were babies,” Matthews said. They were classmates, in the same youth group, in Scouts together, and then went on to start their own long-running businesses in their hometown.
“I’ve known him the majority of his and my life,” said Matthews. “Burl was all about relationships. He loved people, he loved being involved with others and he loved reaching out to those who needed him or he thought he could help.”
Williamson was a founding member of the Sampson Agri-Exposition Center Committee and led, as president, the Clinton-Sampson Chamber of Commerce, N.C. Grape Growers Association and N.C. Propane Gas Association, chairing the latter organization’s Technology and Innovations Committee.
For his efforts with the Chamber, Williamson received the Outstanding Member of the Year. In 2014, he was awarded the National Propane Gas Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
“He made a very concerted effort to give back to his community, with all the resources he had,” said Matthews, noting that could be “human characteristics” such as his wisdom or business savvy, or financially through donations to worthwhile endeavors.
Even as teenagers, Williamson was the embodiment of responsibility. If he was at the wheel, mothers and fathers didn’t have to worry, Matthews said. That responsibility and care he had for others continued through the decades, even when he was stricken by a severe aneurysm in 2012.
“He was committed to his community and an inspiration,” said Matthews. “His strength through his illness — his attitude and his determination — has been unreal. It was quite amazing and inspiring to all of us.”
Even to the end, Williamson would share a pearl of wisdom or a word of wit, his friend said.
Williamson was a member of Graves Memorial Presbyterian Church for four decades, where he served as deacon.
“He was a great friend to me and my family, and he was also a great friend to the City of Clinton,” said Dr. Tommy Newton, a fellow Graves parishioner and close friend who was slated to speak at Williamson’s funeral. “He was a giving person and did a lot of things behind the scenes when he saw a need.”
Newton pointed to Williamson’s involvement in the Clinton High School Athletic Boosters as a prime example.
A 1961 Clinton graduate, Williamson played football, baseball and was manager for the basketball team for the Dark Horses. When Williamson returned to Clinton after college in the mid-1960s, along with shouldering the family business, he became heavily involved in supporting his alma mater.
Williamson volunteered to tape the football games on old reel-to-reel film for many years and was one of the charter members of the CHS Athletic Boosters Club. When Clinton decided to build a new stadium in 1982, Williamson was a key member of the group that helped raise money for the new Dark Horse Stadium.
In the late 1990s, Williamson designed, produced and funded with his own money a dazzling fireworks display that ushered Dark Horse football teams onto the field for years to come. In 2000, he spearheaded the effort to raise funds for the inflatable helmet at each home game, from which the team still emerges today.
Williamson even provided hot chocolate for fans for a decade, with all proceeds going to Clinton athletics. For 2014, he was honored for his lifelong contributions to Clinton athletics.
Newton said he was close enough to see those acts of kindness firsthand, but for every act known to the community, such as the fireworks and the helmet, there were plenty that went unheralded. During last year’s anniversary celebration, wife Connie said it was simple. They love their community and their neighbors.
“We love Clinton and we love Sampson County,” she said. “I don’t want to live anywhere else and I know Burl wouldn’t want to either.”
