Benny Hilton Rose, 70, of the Pike Road community in Pantego, North Carolina, passed away surrounded by his family on January 15, 2020, after a brief battle with lung cancer. He was born in Belhaven Hospital on September 20, 1949. He lived his entire life in Beaufort County, NC, where his family has lived for at least two centuries. He graduated from Pantego High School in 1967. Growing up in the Pinetown, Pungo, and Terra Ceia communities, he loved hunting, fishing, and driving fast cars. His father was a dragline operator and Benny spent many hours with him learning to maintain and operate heavy equipment and helping clear farmland and dig much of the drainage system still in use today in Beaufort, Hyde and Washington Counties.
Since 1996, Benny was the owner of Benny Rose Repair Service, where he worked on trucks, heavy equipment, and anything else folks in the community would drag up. He enjoyed the challenges of mechanic work, and his encyclopedic knowledge of old trucks, tractors, cars, and anything else with an engine brought customers from miles around. Prior to opening his own business, he was shop foreman for Shavender Trucking for 15 years, where he managed maintenance for a fleet of over 100 trucks. Earlier in his career, he worked as a welder, construction worker, at the Weyerhaeuser paper mill, and at Bell Farms in Pantego, where he first began working at 4 years old. He always said that he built some of his most important skills working on the farm, where some years he ploughed all 6,000 acres by himself. He also built lifelong relationships with the people he worked with on the farm.
Benny is survived by his wife of 25 years, Sharon Griekspoor Rose, his son Ian and his wife Julie, his son Jason, and his daughter Shiloh and her partner Tim McClave. He’s also survived by his uncle Steve Waters and his wife Linda, his sister Margaret Mayo, his brother-in-law Ralph Cook, his sister Louise Jordan and her husband Joe, his sister-in- law Arlene Dunbar and her husband Mike, and his brother-in-law Tony Griekspoor and-his wife Lisa. Too numerous to list are beloved cousins, nephews, nieces, great-nieces and great-nephews. Finally, he will be missed greatly by his beloved Pomeranian, Jazz.
Anthony Griekspoor, Shane Griekspoor, Joshua Jobe, Michael Paniagua, Phillip Dunbar, and Leamon Allen will serve as Pallbearers.
Roland Bell, Vernon Bell, Buddy Shavender, Tom Cutler, Al Sawyer, Paul Van Gyzen, Joe Jordan, Pete O’Neal, Charles Gaynor, Connie Lee Simmons, Brad Toppin, and James Riddick will serve as Honorary Pallbearers.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Benjamin “Hambone” Rose and Lois Waters Rose, and by his sister Frances Rose Cook.
Benny’s funeral will be at Union Grove Church of Christ at 6889 NC-99, Pantego, NC 27860 at 2:00 PM on Saturday, January 18, 2020. The family will receive visitors at Union Grove Church of Christ on from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM on Friday, January 17, 2020.
You may share a memory with the family by visiting www.josephpaulfdl.com.
Joseph B. Paul, Jr. Funeral Director Licensee of Washington is serving the Rose family.
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Funeral Service
2:00 PM
Union Grove Church of Christ - Directions
Visiting Hours
6889 NC-99, Pantego, NC 27860
- Friday, January 17, 2020
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7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
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