‘Our hearts are shattered’: Horry school board member mourned after COVID death
Horry County lost not only a school board member this week, but a father, husband, neighbor and friend, those who knew him say.
Ray Winters, who served on the Horry County Board of Education representing Myrtle Beach and Carolina Forest since 2014, died following a COVID-19 diagnosis that landed him in the hospital on a ventilator. Winters was a licensed attorney who owned a practice in Horry County, and leaves behind his wife, Tracy, and his daughter, Alyssa.
“Ray has gone to be with our Lord and Savior,” Tracy Smith Winters wrote on Facebook. “Please continue to pray for me and Alyssa as our hearts are shattered. Love you all.”
The Sun News left messages with Tracy Smith Winters ahead of publication.
Congressman Tom Rice remembers Ray Winters
After the news of Winters’ death spread, condolences poured in for his family, stretching from friends and neighbors, to Winters’ law office, to elected officials.
After law school, Winters found work in Myrtle Beach at the law firm run by now-U.S. Rep. Tom Rice (R-Myrtle Beach), who said he hired Winters as associate in the late 1990s. Winters worked at Rice’s firm for nine years, who said he got to know Winters well over that time.
He said he knew Winters to be a man who was dedicated to his family and his church and provided “a good balance” to the Horry County school board when he decided to get involved in politics.
“He proved it every day. He was a good husband, he was a good father, he was involved in his community,” Rice said. “I was proud to know him.”
As Alyssa grew up, Winters got involved in local politics. Prior to running for school board, Winters called Rice and asked for his advice, who was involved in Horry County politics by then. Rice said they talked through the process of running for office, and he wished him well.
Though the two didn’t talk as frequently once Winters left Rice’s law firm, and once Rice won his seat in Congress, Rice recalled Winters as an effective leader of the local schools.
“I think he made the place better, and I felt like he was a good balance throughout the last two school board chairmen,” Rice said.
Rice said he got in touch with the Winters’ family once he heard Ray had gotten sick.
Rice also reflected on the seriousness of the COVID-19 virus, and its more infectious delta variant. He said Winters’ passing should make people take the disease even more seriously than they already do.
He noted that Winters is the latest Horry County leader to die from the disease, with Horry schools vice chair John Poston, former Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes, and former Horry County Republican Party Chairman Robert Rabon all dying from the virus.
“This is a terrible disease, and when you think about so many community leaders have been affected by it…it puts an exclamation mark on the fact that we have to stay vigilant and we have to get the dang vaccine,” Rice said. “This should really open peoples eyes.”
Colleagues and neighbors mourn Horry County school board member
Winters’ death sparked a “deep sense of loss” across the district, spokesperson Lisa Bourcier said in a statement to The Sun News.
“Our hearts mourn for him,” Bourcier wrote. “Mr. Winters was a dedicated public servant and deeply committed to the betterment of Horry County Schools and his community. He was a tireless advocate for public education, and we will celebrate his life and be thankful for his contributions and support of our students, their families, and our staff.”
A Facebook post on the page of his law offices said the employees are “saddened by the loss of Ray” and said he was a friend and mentor to many.
Calling the Plantation Lakes neighborhood of Carolina Forest home since 2006, Winters was known as a friendly neighbor and one who was willing to occasionally offer pro bono, neighborly legal advice, said Don Bowne, who lived around the corner. Winters also represented his neighborhood’s homeowners association as an attorney.
Bowne, since former President Donald Trump entered the political scene in 2015, has become an avid supporter and runs a program called Red Hats for Trump, in which he distributes red hats with pro-Trump messages on them to friends and other supporters. As he’d come and go from home, Bowne would stop to talk with Winters and at one point promised to get him a red hat. Unfortunately, Bowne said, that never happened.
“It’s times like this that you reflect on life and what you’ve done and haven’t done,” Bowne said. “I just never got him a hat.”
Bowne said never grew close with the Winters family, but would frequently wave or stop by for a chat, or even some legal advice.
Winters was a “believer in public schools,” Bowne said, and a “uniter.”
“He’ll be missed,” Bowne said.
Horry County political figures remember Winters
Because Winters was an elected official, he had many friends, colleagues and competitors in the Horry County political world. Dreama Purdue, the former chair of the Horry County Republican Party, helped him run his first campaign for school board. Horry County Council member Dennis DiSabato described him as a “colleague, competitor, compatriot but mostly, friend.”
Reese Boyd III, a local attorney who hosts a conservative radio show and who ran for chairman of the Horry County GOP this spring, said he worked down the hall from Winters, and considered him a colleague. Boyd’s firm would frequently work with Winters on real estate matters, he said, and was an accessible and conscientious man.
“(He was) just a great guy, cared about his country, cared about his community, just one of those guys who was a stand up guy,” Boyd said. “You could always rely on him.”
Boyd noted that he could tell that Winters’ faith was central to who he was. Most people experience difficult times in their lives, he said, and he could tell that no matter what happened, Winters was “grounded.”
“Everybody’s life can be a struggle at times, (but) Ray seemed very grounded and very stable, very grounded by his faith,” Boyd said.
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 2:21 PM.
