Jack Westmoreland has been described as a friend, mentor, cheerleader, and much, much more.
According to most, Westmoreland never met a stranger, only people he was going to make a friend.
He was a friend to Hartsville and the friendship was mutual. He had a lengthy career at Sonoco.
From his obituary came this reflection, "He was told by some by (sic) executives at Sonoco that Jack was the man you must know".
According to Dick Puffer of the Byerly Trust, Westmoreland had his fingerprints all over Hartsville.
“Jack was in a variety of human resource positions at Sonoco” he said. “And in the eighties he was appointed to a community relations position as Charlie Coker, then President of Sonoco, wanted to find ways that the company could help make Hartsville an even stronger community for both quality of life and recruiting purposes. Sonoco was then becoming a major corporation and having the headquarters in a small town was not always looked at as positive.”
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“Jack worked on many ideas and I think he also was a spark for Centennial Park,” Puffer said. “At the time there was a dilapidated building on the corner of Fifth Street and Carolina and he along with others worked to solve that problem. Jack was a convener who worked hard to include lots of voices when it came to trying to both identify problems and find solutions.”
Hartsvillian Evelyn Dampier, who worked at Sonoco, reflected on her experiences with Westmoreland.
“He loved to pull games on me,” she said. “He was just a delight.
“I was at Sonoco when he got there. He made that personal connection with his employees,” she said.
“I remember he gave a Christmas present of 12 hours of free babysitting,” she said. “I had two children. Jack and Helen did a fine job.”
No one had to use a thesaurus to describe the many traits of Westmoreland. They rolled off the tongue with such ease, it was not needed.
One employee sent a message describing Jack as. "THE BOSS, THE MENTOR, THE LEADER, THE CHEERLEADER, THE PROTECTOR, THE PROMOTER, THE ENCOURAGE, THE CONSOLER, THE SOUNDING BOARD, THE SUPPORTER, THE COMRADE IN ARMS, FELLOW ROTARIAN, FELLOW CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SUPPORTER, THE DISCIPLINARIAN, THE SHOULDER TO LEAN ON WHEN THE GOING WAS TOUGH, DO YOU GET THE MESSAGE, BUT MOST OF ALL MY FRIEND."
Longtime Sonoco employee Rick Benthall described Westmoreland as a man of great faith, compassion and selflessness.
“Jack wrote the book "God He Don't Live In No Box." Well, Jack mirrored that himself. You could never put Jack Westmoreland in a box, never,” Benthall said.
“(He was) Full of faith, love, compassion, selflessness beyond human comprehension for most of us. But always presented an "out of the box" look at things. Different...full of wit and humor.
“He would do things anonymously to help people. That's the true spirit of giving and he exemplified that,” Benthall said. “No one knows you do it, except you and God. But the irony of that is people sometimes would end up finding out it was Jack because of unique unforgettable ways in which he did things. One of a kind he was.”
Westmoreland’s book was published in 2002 and has sold many copies over the years, according to people who own a copy.
Westmoreland was also very community oriented and to the point that he revived the local chamber of commerce.
According to Nancy McGee, former Hartsville Chamber of Commerce board member told the story.
“In the early 1980’s, the chamber fell on hard times,” she said. “There was low membership and a lack of funds.
“Jack decided the chamber was not going to die,” she said. “He recruited Dianne Chinnes from Johnsonville to run the chamber.
One of Westmoreland’s pet projects was Christmas in April, which was a home-repair project.
The idea was to repair a home for an owner who was poor, elderly or handicapped.
According to McGee, the initial project was to be for four homes or roofs.
“I think we did 20 homes that first year,” McGee said. “No one says ‘No’ to Jack.”
All of the labor was donated and the materials were donated or paid for by donations to the project.
Also according to his published obituary, Westmoreland worked with Governor Carroll Campbell on the Economic Development committee. He also worked on the Keep South Carolina Beautiful program, at one time having the state to sow wild flowers along the interstates.
In 1995, he received the Order of Palmetto award by Governor David Beasley.
Another one of Jack's talents was finding lost people and families. One was a Vietnam couple where a father and two small boys got on the boat leaving Vietnam coming to U.S. The father had to leave his wife and two month old child in Vietnam. He came to the U.S., resided in Conway, SC, where he worked as a dishwasher, later went to college and raised his two sons. The sons graduated from and entered medical school. Their mother and brother (now 10 years old) were later re-united in through Jack's efforts working with an Ambassador.