Charles Robert Odom

Charles Robert Odom, native of Durham, died Friday, 11 August 2023. He was born 23 July 1941 to Ennis Guilford and Effie Cacindy Nash Odom in Durham. His mother died days following his birth. His stepmother was Beulah Emma Hackney Poole Odom. Surviving family members include his wife Carla Lucille Whitehurst Odom, daughters Charlotte Martin Odom Lytle Perrin (David Courtney, Jr.), Catherine Lynne Odom Quick (Kenneth Douglas) and grandsons Robert Alexander Post Lytle, Christian Douglas Quick, Andrew Kenneth Lokie Quick, and cousins.

He was a graduate of Durham High School, Campbell College with a BS in Business Administration, Troy State University with a MBA, the US Army's Command and General Staff College, having subsequently returned to Leavenworth as a guest lecturer, and courses at the US Army Logistics Management College, where he also was assigned as Course Director. He had been assigned to command, staff, and education assignments in the USA and the Republic of Vietnam, Thailand and the Federal Republic of Germany at the United States Headquarters, Europe.

Following military retirement, Odom enjoyed careers at Computer Science Corporation, as Co-Partner of B&O Computers and as a GED instructor. Over his lifetime he was an ordained deacon, church warden, singer, teacher, and lecturer. He was a member of St. Luke's Episcopal Church. LTC Odom had performed in solo, quartet, and in choirs and choral societies in several countries. Honors and awards included the Family of the Year's Family Life Award. He had been invested on the deck of the USS North Carolina as a Knight Chevalier of the Priority of St. Thomas a' Becket of the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem.

LTC Odom provided community service as a Rotarian, President of the Colonial Heights Club, a Paul Harris Fellow, and as Vice President of Crater Community Hospice. He was a former President of the Fort Rucker School Association, member of the Board of Visitors for Mary Baldwin College, and Class Agent for Campbell University where he later was assigned to the ROTC Detachment and appointed to the Faculty Senate.

He was a 2009 Inaugural Patron of the Hereditary Society Community and named Honorary Member of the Class of 2018. LTC Odom held offices and memberships in about 50 lineage organizations; notably as the former national leader of the National Society Sons and Daughter of the Pilgrims, National Society of Sons and Daughters of Antebellum Planters, Sons and Daughters of the Colonial and Antebellum Bench and Bar, Descendants of Continental Colonial Officers, Descendants of Colonial Mothers, and Hereditary Order of Descendants of the Loyalists and Patriots of the American Revolution. He was a former Treasurer of the National Gavel Society, and member of Founders Fellowship. In North Carolina he had held offices in the General Society of Colonial Wars, and Sons of the Revolution, and membership in Sons and Daughters of the Pilgrims, St. Andrew's Society and Order of Founders and Patriots of America.

At the time of LTC Odom's death, he was serving as Inaugural Aid-de-Camp of the Order of Founders of the Granville District, Deputy Commander of Order of the Vietnam War, Adjunct Director of Swamp Fox Board, and founding member of the Umstead Pines Book Club. A complete biography may be found under his name with the Hereditary Society Community.

A visitation will be held Wednesday, August 16, 2023, at 9:45 a.m. at Hall-Wynne Funeral Service, 1113 N. Main Street, Durham. The Rev. Robert Fruehwirth will officiate at 11:00 a.m. with the Committal and full military honors at Maplewood Cemetery, 1621 Duke University Road, Durham. Pallbearers serving are Michael Post Lytle; Anthony Roderick Butler; William Nicholas Flagler; William Hunter Hoopes; Stephen Sanders Howard; Jefferson Jay Traylor and Pei Zhong. Honorary pallbearers serving are Robert Alexander Post Lytle, Christian Douglas Quick and Andrew Kenneth Lokie Quick. In lieu of flowers the family requests that memorials be directed to Tunnels of Towers.