Clinton High School to honor Coach Bill Rhodes with community memorial service Friday
October 12, 2026
Correction: An earlier version of this article listed an incorrect location for the service. The service will be held in the Clinton Middle School gymnasium, next to Wilder Stadium.
The Clinton community will gather this week to remember Coach Bill Rhodes, who spent 65 years shaping the lives of students in Laurens School District 56.
A service to honor and remember the life and legacy of Coach Bill Rhodes will be held at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16, in the Clinton Middle School gymnasium, next to Wilder Stadium. The service is open to former students, players, colleagues, soldiers, friends and anyone whose life was touched by the longtime educator and coach.
Rhodes died Aug. 3 at NHC in Clinton at age 88. A private funeral service was held for the family at Cross Anchor-Yarborough Chapel United Methodist Church, and the family promised a larger celebration of his life at a later date. Friday’s gathering fulfills that promise, bringing the community together steps from the stadium where he coached for decades and where he received the state’s highest civilian honor.
A Whitmire native and Newberry College graduate, Rhodes joined District 56 in 1960. He taught at Florida Street Junior High and Bell Street Middle School before moving to Clinton High School, where he served as a teacher, coach and administrator. Well into his 80s, he could still be found running the cafeteria register at lunch. Students knew him as a firm disciplinarian, but those closest to him remember the twinkle in his eye and a laugh that could be heard down the hallway.
His involvement in athletics spanned 61 years. He was a key member of the Clinton High football staff during a stretch that produced six Class AAA state championships and four Upper State titles. He also coached baseball and softball and worked the ticket gate at basketball games and the concession stand on football Friday nights.
Rhodes served 42 years in the South Carolina National Guard, enlisting in 1955 as an infantry rifleman. When he retired in 1997, he was command sergeant major of the 218th Heavy Separate Brigade, responsible for 4,500 soldiers across the state.
He gave 28 years to the Clinton Exchange Club, including seven as president, helping run concessions at Presbyterian College football games to raise money for Clinton High School students.
In October 2023, Rhodes received the Order of the Palmetto, the state’s highest civilian honor, during a halftime ceremony at Wilder Stadium. This season, the Clinton High varsity football team is wearing a helmet sticker in his memory and has dedicated the season to him.
When he died, his daughter, Lawry Rhodes Sharp, a teacher at Clinton High School, said she was grateful to have shared her father with so many people.
“He belonged to his students and his players and his soldiers and his community, and there was always enough of him to go around,” Sharp said.
Rhodes is survived by his daughter, Lawry Rhodes Sharp (Mike) of Clinton; his brother, Don Rhodes (Sonya); niece Rhonda Cantrell (Russ); and nephews Richard Rhodes (Melissa) and Kelly Jordan (Tonya). He was predeceased by his parents, R.V. and Maggie Elizabeth Rhodes; his wife, Judy Irby Rhodes, who died in 2007; and his nephew Charles Rhodes.
