COLUMN: Florence natives were truly able to reach for the stars

A couple of Florence girls some years ago got jobs in Washington and left to reach for the stars, so to speak. They later found themselves knee deep in stars, but more about the stars later.
Patsy Smith and Landess McCown finished college and came back to Florence, but they wanted to move on.
“I knew I didn’t want to teach school,” McCown said. She asked her father, principal of McClenaghan High School, if he knew anyone in Washington. He did know Congressman John L. McMillan. After some conversation, the girls had jobs in Washington.
There were a couple of young men in the picture, McClenaghan classmate Charles Bagnal and Frank Kelso from Fayetteville, Tenn.
As it turned out, Bagnal was a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and Kelso a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. They wound up married, Bagnal to Smith and Kelso to McCown.
The other night, years later, the four were in town as Bagnal was recognized at the annual School Foundation Celebration Gala as Florence School District One Distinguished Graduate.
He is also, I am confident, the highest ranking military officer ever to come out of Florence. Bagnal credits Ira Rainwater and Roy Graham, Florence men for whom he as a kid had great respect, with acquainting him with the possibilities of a West Point education.
Coming out of McClenaghan High School, he took the battery of exams for a possible appointment to the Military Academy and passed them. He was one of a those that McMillan appointed that year, and it came through in a funny way.
“I got a telegram on June 29 saying I had been accepted,” he said. It gave him instructions on what to bring with him and to be there on July 1. That made a rush job of grabbing a train out of Florence, getting another train from New York and winding up on the West Point campus on July 1.
Bagnal had known Patsy Smith and Landess McCown at MHS, and he says it took a little trickery to get Smith to go out with him. She apparently was reluctant, and he credits Laurence McIntosh with misleading her into the car with him.
Anyway, it went well, and when the girls worked in Washington, Smith took weekend bus trips with a bunch of young women to West Point and spent time with Bagnal. McCown frequently went to nearby Annapolis to spend time with Kelso, the boy from Tennessee.
When not going to West Point, Smith sometimes went to Annapolis with McCown to dances including midshipmen. Bagnal claims they paid admission for the privilege, but I’m not sure of that.
The cadet and midshipman graduated and were commissioned about the same time, and the two couples quickly married, one wedding at West Point and the other in Florence and on the same day. Kelso said they have sometimes celebrated anniversaries together.
They weren’t sure about careers at first, but one found a home in the Army and the other a home in the Navy.
And what homes they turned out to be. Bagnal became a lieutenant general and Kelso became an admiral. That was when the Florence girls found themselves knee deep in the stars that their husbands were wearing.
Bagnal, among a string of important assignments, served for several years as deputy superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy. His final assignment was as commander of U.S. Army forces in the Pacific with headquarters in Hawaii.
After retirement in 1989, he got a law degree from the University of South Carolina and practiced law in Columbia for 10 years before retiring again. He and his wife, Patsy, now live in Columbia.
Kelso after commission went into the submarine service and moved up to become commander of the Atlantic Fleet. In the 1990s, he served as Chief of Naval Operations, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Part of that time he was acting secretary of the navy.
He is a little outnumbered by McClenaghan alimni when the four of them get together, but he said back in Tenneessee his wife is a lone MHS alumna.
When Bagnal was honored by School District 1 the other night, the Florence girls got together again with all of their stars.

— Thom Anderson is a retired journalist who has 40 years experience with South Carolina newspapers, including the Morning News. He can be reached at .