Local businessman, broadcaster and Rotarian Herman Ray Spivey Sr., passed away Wednesday at River Park Hospital after an extended illness. He was 86.
Mr. Spivey served as president and chairman of the board of Cumberland Lumber & Manufacturing Company for many years, joining his father, Herman Roscoe Spivey with the company when he returned to McMinnville in 1949. He had worked with TVA in Chattanooga just before moving back to McMinnville after leaving to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II in the Pacific Theater of operations.
The Spivey family had first moved to McMinnville in 1925. Mr. Spivey attended the local public schools here before attending the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He later received a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of South Carolina.
Along with serving in the leadership role of Cumberland Lumber, he also was at the helm of the National Oak Flooring Manufacturers Association as its president from 1975-76.
His other business interests included radio broadcasting in which he and his father constructed radio station WKKH in Rockwood. They then sold that station and purchased WMSR AM-FM in Manchester. Mr. Spivey served as the president of the family’s radio business for 20 years prior to selling the stations in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Mr. Spivey was a director for City Bank & Trust Company for 20 years and a member of the American Legion and VFW.
He was a member and past president of the McMinnville Rotary Club where he was also a Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Foundation.
He was a member of First Baptist Church of McMinnville where he served for many years as a deacon.