Phillip Bennett

Phil was born July 4, 1935, in Hattiesburg MS, one of seven children to parents Bill and Edna Bennett. At age 17 he enlisted in the Navy and went to Bainbridge MD for two weeks training. At the end of that two weeks, he returned to Hattiesburg to attend his senior year of high school. After graduating in 1953 he continued weekly Naval meetings and requested a transfer to Jackson, in order to attend Draughn's Business School for Radio and TV. A year later, August 10, 1953, he took a job at AT&T.

While working for AT&T he spent five years (1974-1979) in the Panama Canal Zone as a Communications Technician for Transoceanic Communications, the AT&T undersea operations, working in a World War Il bunker. He worked for AT&T for 46 years, retiring July 31, 1999.Phil enjoyed electronics. He once built a TV and radio from a kit. While working for AT&T he also worked part time on CB radios for Wade's Communications.

Phil met and married Audrey Nell McGee, who had an 8-year-old daughter, Barbara. Barbara has many wonderful memories of times spent with him, like at the Jackson Zoo, eating hamburgers at the Pig Stand and teaching her how to drive. “I think the final driving lesson was the day we were in his small MGB sports car, going downhill into a dead-end street. I hadn't yet grasped the clutch and

brake idea, so into the front yard we zoomed of the house in front of us! Somehow Phil managed to quickly get his left leg over the console of that tiny car and push the clutch and brake at the same time - saving the homeowner's garage from a head-on collision!” Phil was a very quiet man. He was a proud man and stubbornly independent - never wanting to ask for help and even had a hard time accepting help. And he was not a big conversationalist.

However, after his wife, Audrey passed away, he and Barbara stayed in close contact and talked every day. Sometimes they would talk for 20 minutes, sometimes they talked for an hour. And if it was baseball season, sometimes she would call him, and they would watch the Texas Rangers ballgame - over the phone.