Silas Calhoun McMeekin was born August 25, 1902 in Blair, South Carolina, the son of Thomas L. and Ida Ruff McMeekin. McMeekin attended Clemson Agricultural College graduating in 1923 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He soon began working for the Broad River Power Company which provided electric power to Columbia. For twelve years McMeekin worked in the production, transmission and distribution divisions of the firm and organized its first dispatching system. In 1935 he became general manager of the Missouri General Utilities Company. The following year he was elected president of the firm and became general manager of affiliated companies in Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona. McMeekin returned to South Carolina in 1944 to become executive vice president of the South Carolina Electric and Gas Company. Later that same year, upon the elevation of Norman Coit to chairman of the board, he was elected president. McMeekin guided the firm through the period of economic expansion after World War II. In 1947, the Charleston Power Company was sold by the Southern Company to SCE&G. The large coal-fired Urquhart Plant commissioned in 1953 increased the company’s generating capacity as new industries moved to South Carolina. The following year McMeekin oversaw the creation of the South Carolina Natural Gas Company bringing natural gas pipelines to the Midlands. In 1956 he helped to organize the consortium for nuclear power, Carolinas-Virginia Nuclear Power Associates, Inc. that eventually expanded to include companies in Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. The period also witnessed the April 1949 strike by Columbia bus drivers who worked for SCE&G as well as a decades long series of controversies with publicly owned utilities, particularly Santee Cooper. The bus strike was settled after sixteen days with a compromise wage increase between what SCE&G offered and what the union desired. McMeekin was in the forefront defending private utilities and halting efforts to expand the distribution system of public utilities during the early 1950s. However, his efforts to purchase Santee Cooper failed in 1964. He became chairman of the board of SCE&G in 1966. S.C. McMeekin served his community, state and nation in a variety of professional, civic, and philanthropic endeavors. He was a member of and served as president of the Southeastern Electric Exchange and South Carolina Society of Engineers. He served on a number of corporate boards including the First National Bank of South Carolina. McMeekin was one of the organizers and a president of the Palmetto Club. Active in local charities, he served on the boards of the Community Chest, United War Fund, and American Red Cross. He was chairman of Columbia College’s rebuilding program after its disastrous fire in 1964 as well as the First Presbyterian Church’s building program. He served as president of the Clemson University Alumni Association and a trustee of the Clemson University Foundation. In 1955 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree by Clemson. McMeekin married Mattie Tidwell of Ridgeway. They had two children, a daughter Anne McMeekin (Mrs. Ladson H. Boyle) and a son S. C. McMeekin, Jr. Silas Calhoun McMeekin died October 14, 1974 in Columbia South Carolina. This note is based upon information from obituaries found in box 3 folder 17 “Congressional Record – Senate: S.C. McMeekin Obituary November 26, 1974” and additional information found in the papers.