Life Story
William Richard “Dickey” Bell Sr. was born in Lancaster, South Carolina, on August 15, 1956, and died at home in Lancaster on July 1, 2026, age 69.
Dickey began working for Hendrix Furniture at about age 15. In 1977 he began full-time work with Springs Industries at the Grace Bleachery Plant, on third shift in screen print. He remained on third shift until entering the Production Management Program after his 1985 bachelor’s degree. He later became a Systems Analyst III, held several Customer Service Center roles, and finished his Springs career at the Fort Mill office.
Around Christmas 1976, Dickey was critically injured in an automobile accident when another vehicle struck the driver’s-side door of his Mustang II, pinning him between the door and center console. Emergency exploratory surgery revealed a crushed pelvis, a ruptured bladder, facial injuries that required reconstructive surgery, and additional traumatic injuries. His lengthy hospital recovery included being immobilized in traction for injuries involving his femur and hip. During his recovery, he lost approximately one-third of his body mass.
The accident affected Dickey for the rest of his life. Because of nerve damage, he could no longer raise his left foot upward normally. Into the mid-1990s, he wore a spring-loaded leg brace that slid into a specially made slot in the heel of his shoe.
Because of facial scarring around his chin and lips, Dickey nearly always kept some form of facial hair. He initially wore a full beard and later favored a goatee. Around 1981, he shaved cleanly once, but the clean-shaven look did not last long.
As a young adult, Dickey owned a Honda 350 street motorcycle, while Spooky had a Honda 450. After Dickey’s automobile accident left his foot and ankle unable to function normally, he could no longer ride the Honda. He eventually bought a blue Harley Springer motorcycle with its shifter on the right side. The Harley was kick-start only and notoriously difficult to crank. On more than one occasion it briefly fired in the middle of a kick and literally launched Dickey off the motorcycle. Because of the weight he had lost during his recovery, he sometimes enlisted others to help him start it.
In the early 1980s, Dickey wrecked the Harley twice and broke his left leg both times in nearly the same place. After receiving the telephone call about the second wreck, Buster responded, “The same damn leg?!” Dickey said that one of the wrecks happened after a “dog” ran in front of him.
He attended USC Lancaster part-time; his transfer record covers 1973–1981 with 26 hours earned and a 2.98 GPA. He graduated cum laude from Limestone College on May 4, 1985, with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration/Management and a 3.654 GPA. He earned an MBA from Winthrop College on December 15, 1990. His graduate GPA is believed to have been approximately 3.95, possibly with one B, but that figure remains unconfirmed.
Dickey and Sonja grew up in the same neighborhood but only knew of each other until they met while attending Limestone. They began dating September 29, 1982, and married August 7, 1994, at Grace Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, officiated by Rev. William Dysard, Jr.
After their marriage they lived on Winsor Drive in Lancaster. They also owned a second home at Tilghman Shores, Unit B-8, North Myrtle Beach, from about August 1996 until May 15, 2008.
After Springs closed, Dickey continued his information-technology education. He earned the CompTIA Network+ certification on July 30, 2007, and a Network Administration certificate from York Technical College on August 10, 2007.
A 1998 Lancaster News feature on Technical Solutions listed Dickey as an owner. Family history clarifies that he was listed to help strengthen future loan and contract applications because of his education and experience; he was not actually an owner of the business.
Dickey worked at ArrowPointe Credit Union in IT beginning in 2007. He received the Support Staff of the Year Award, and his photograph appeared on the Spring 2016 cover of The Pointe. After Founders Federal Credit Union acquired ArrowPointe at the end of 2021, he continued at a Founders branch. His last working day was April 30, 2026; he remained employed at the time of his death.
Dickey was brilliant, a perfectionist, very personable, and had a smart-ass sense of humor. He enjoyed lawn care, his Mazda Miata convertible, and shooting. Shooting was primarily a father-and-son activity with Rickey. He was a devoted Clemson Tigers fan but attended at least three South Carolina Gamecocks games with Rickey.
In his final months Dickey suffered from advanced lung cancer. After hospital stays and treatment in Lancaster and Florence, further treatment was canceled and he entered hospice care. Sonja cared for him at home until his death.
In August 2026, Founders renamed its Spirit Award the Bell Spirit Award and began manufacturing a metal bell for outstanding employees in his honor.
Family Memories
Seashells in the Honda
When Rickey was around early kindergarten age, he filled the gas tank of Dickey’s Honda motorcycle with seashells from a beach bucket. Needless to say, Rickey was not very popular for a while and received closer supervision whenever he was in the garage.
Lake Wateree Parties
Dickey hosted enormous parties at the Lake Wateree property, sometimes drawing hundreds of attendees and featuring multiple bonfires.
According to family recollection, Irvin Phillips once left one of the parties while possibly intoxicated and drove through a stop sign at a T-intersection. The hilly terrain ended in a drop-off into a ravine across the road, causing the car to go airborne and leaving it totaled. Irvin was a very large, muscular man. His only significant injury was to his left arm, where something on the driver’s door tore away a chunk of flesh. This happened before Irvin began dating Debbie.
Wateree Wildlife
During the 1980s, Lake Wateree seemed to have far more visible wildlife. Seeing a water moccasin, muskrat, deer, turkey, rabbit, or another wild animal was a daily occurrence. The family normally kept a firearm at the property, usually a shotgun.
Buster used to say that rifles were not allowed within a mile of the river because a bullet could skip across the water. Looking back, Rickey doubts that this was an actual rule and believes Buster simply wanted to keep the young adults from firing .22 rifles around the property.
On one occasion, nine-year-old Rickey carried Buster’s hand-me-down, double-barreled youth .410 shotgun and spotted a rabbit near the road at the edge of the property. He not-so-subtly stalked it until he was close, then fired both barrels. He could hear Granddaddy Buster laughing in the background. Rickey thought he had found supper, but the rabbit was pulverized and what remained was full of lead. It became a memorable lesson that firing both barrels of a .410 from about ten feet was not a useful way to prepare a rabbit for supper.
The Viking Funeral Pyre
It was very unusual for Dickey to be at the river home at night when Buster and Rickey were staying there. On one such occasion, all three had spent the day cleaning driftwood from the property after a storm. They built an enormous pile of wood, probably ten feet in diameter, and, in true Bell fashion, set it ablaze with gasoline.
What they had failed to notice was that the power lines feeding the trailer ran directly above their Viking funeral pyre. They realized the danger when the insulation burned away, the lines began arcing, and the transformer serving the area blew. It was not long before the damaged power line fell to the ground.
During that same overnight stay, Rickey walked about ten feet out onto the lawn before quickly returning to the trailer and saying that he had seen a snake. Buster and Dickey told him that snakes would not be moving around near the trailer at night and initially laughed it off. After Rickey continued aggravating them about it, Dickey finally agreed to look. About thirty seconds later, they heard him exclaim, “That’s the biggest cottonmouth I’ve ever seen!” He then unceremoniously killed it with a hoe.
The Liberty Hill Hairpin Curve
In another story from near the Liberty Hill intersection where Irvin wrecked, Dickey was reportedly riding in the passenger seat of his own vehicle when the driver failed to negotiate a hairpin curve near the trash dump. The vehicle effectively cut a new road through the woods.
The Ithaca Riot Gun
Dickey and Donald Barrett regularly spent time at the Lake Wateree place when Buster, Rickey, and Heather were not staying there for the summer. On one occasion, they were handling Dickey’s Ithaca pump-action shotgun, commonly known as a riot gun. The shotgun had been designed for military use: spent shells ejected through the bottom so they would not strike soldiers beside the shooter, and its “slam-fire” feature allowed it to fire as soon as the pump chambered a shell while the trigger remained held.
During that occasion, Donald accidentally fired a shell through both the ceiling and roof. The shotgun later passed to Rickey and is now one of his most prized possessions.
The Beaver Creek Boat
During another Dickey-and-Donald adventure, they were returning from Beaver Creek at night when the boat struck a stump or tree. The impact tore a hole about a foot long through the lower side of the hull below the waterline. Even after it was repaired, the boat continued to leak and did not have a bilge pump.
Each morning while the boat remained in the water, Buster and Rickey took it out to drain it. In an unconventional example of true Bell ingenuity, they drained it while underway instead of putting it back on the trailer. Buster applied enough throttle to lift the bow but held the boat short of coming fully onto plane. Rickey then removed the interior drain plug and two smaller plugs near the front of the bilge area, allowing the collected water to flow out.
They were always careful to look into the bilge before removing the plugs because they feared that a water moccasin might be hiding back there.
The Little Sailboat
The family also had a very small sailboat with a cockpit measuring roughly four feet by four feet. It was designed to be sailed by one person and to remain afloat if capsized. A wooden daggerboard was inserted from above, through the floor and out the bottom of the hull; after a capsize, the sailor could stand on the daggerboard and use it to help right the boat. Rickey believes, but is not certain, that it may have been a Phantom 14.
On the sailboat’s final cruise, Dickey capsized it and somehow the mast came free and sank to the bottom of the river. The recovered sail later hung above the entrance door on the river trailer’s full-length front porch.
The mastless boat sat for years at the Fairview Drive home. It was eventually traded to contractor Noah Terry as payment for planting azalea bushes. Rickey remembers that Noah reminded him of Kenny Rogers.
The Fire-Ant Shooting Trip
Dickey and Rickey often went shooting together in the 1980s. They would stop on the way to the gravel pits and pick up cans and other safe targets. On one trip Heather came along and stepped from an older Toyota 4WD truck directly into a fire-ant mound. Dickey tackled her and beat the ants off her legs; both were bitten badly.
North Myrtle Beach
The early beach photographs belong to the annual family vacations and were taken before Dickey and Sonja purchased their Tilghman Shores second home.
The Buck Stove — Early 1980s
Dad was in his wild-child mode in the early 1980s. One night he didn't come home, which wasn't particularly unusual at the time.
Granddad Buster was mad because Dad was supposed to help cut wood for the Buck stove in the living room. He called Dad's friend Donald Barrett looking for him. Donald said Dad was there, asleep, and would not get up.
Buster told Donald, in not-polite terms, to throw water on his A** and wake him up; he had stuff to do!
Family recollection — Rickey Bell
