Reposted from the Sampson Independent, By Carson Kriger - May 15, 2025
A growing line of cars waiting to pick up Union Elementary students coupled with a busy stretch of U.S. Highway 421 south that has been the site of many accidents, left one community member struggling to understand why a caution light couldn’t be installed.
After months of trying to make things happen, Master Chief (ret. Navy) Terry Williams decided to take matters into his own hands — buying and paying to have caution lights erected at the school.
Catching up with the towering Williams in the heat of a midday Tuesday on the side of U.S. 421, the first thing he had to say about the lights and his donation to the school system was directed to his fiancée, who he credits for the project.
“ (I) … did this in honor of Janice Melton, my fiancée, and a former teacher in Charlotte and later with Cumberland County Schools, who passed away in 2023 from cancer. Without her, nothing would have been possible here,” Williams, a former educator, stressed.
Since his retirement from public education, Williams has been a member of the Union School District Advisory Board, where he was able to build numerous new contacts as well as continuing to maintain the already substantial volume of old ones made in his time with Sampson County Schools.
It would come in handy in getting Union Elementary’s new caution lights installed.
“I learned to navigate the channels of command in my time in the Navy, and it came in very handy,” Williams said when explaining some of the initial difficulties in getting the lights put in.
Similar proposals for erecting a caution light or lights at the school had been examined and denied as unnecessary in the past, creating the first of the major hurdles faced by Williams and those who came to support him in this cause. “Because I had some idea of how to move through a Byzantine bureaucracy, and even more had some good idea to whom to speak, I was able to get some things done,” Williams recalled.
Among those who would lend their aid in Williams’ efforts were Daniel Jones, with the DOT out of Clinton, Mark Hammond of Sampson County Schools, superintendent Dr. Jamie King and his secretary Jackie Chabot, as well as Ross Kimbrow, also of the DOT and a resident of the Union School District.
Once all the channels of government had been navigated, it would be Terry Spell Mechanical Services, Inc. of Autryville that would see to the installation of the caution lights, which was done at no cost to the Sampson County taxpayers — the cost for the lights and their installation was covered by Williams.
“Janice left me some land when she passed away, and I sold some of that to pay for these,” Williams explained, pointing to the caution light. He did so almost as an afterthought.
The price tag totaled $25,000.
For Williams, it was a small price to pay for the safety along the highway and particularly to the students and their parents.
The increased safety provided by these caution lights is evident through the drop in traffic incidents around the school, something that has not gone unnoticed by county of school officials.
“I’m very appreciative of Mr. Williams’ efforts in this, and the awareness of our school zone it’s helped to create,” attested UES Principal Melissa Finch.
“I know there have been a number of accidents at the end of the road in the past, and we’ve not really seen one since they’ve been put in. The school and I are very grateful for what he’s done with this.”
Her sentiments were echoed by Valerie Newton, Sampson County School’s chief communications and public information officer. Newton said the county schools was “…very grateful that Mr. Williams recognized there was a need and was able to put forward the funds to purchase the lights and have them installed.”
A former technology educator and director of technology for both Sampson County and Cumberland County schools, Williams was at the tiller for both counties in their turn to help usher in the modern age of information technology. “I had to load up and carry the computers to the labs myself,” he explained, illustrating how early on this came in the process of computers and their related technologies finding their way into so many aspects of modern education and day to day life.
Waving it off as just another thing he had done in his career, it should be noted that all of his accomplishments as an educator or educational support staff were done after serving 28 years in the United States Navy on three repair and refit ships, as well spending some time serving as an instructional specialist in peripheral support to the now-famous Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU) — or as they are much better known, SEAL Team 6. “It was before they became famous,” he was careful to note.
His training, he said, gave him the patience and the ability to work through the problems to find a solution at Union Elementary School.
But that won’t be his last project, he insists.
Williams isn’t content to rest on his laurels, despite his donation. “Next project is Union Intermediate. I don’t know if we’ll ever get a turning lane for them, but I’m working on caution lights and new speed limit signs for them now.”