Cecil Mayo

Cecil Mayo is a son of the South who was born and raised in Anniston, Alabama. After completing high school in 1958 at Cobb High in Anniston, Alabama, he served in the United States Marines for six years. His tour of duty included serving as a military police officer in Okinawa, Japan. After his military service, he moved North to Buffalo, New York as his family was part of the great migration of African Americans moving North for greater opportunities. In Buffalo, he attended the University of Buffalo and received his bachelor's degree in business administration with a focus on accounting. After graduation, he landed a job as a claims adjuster with Nationwide Insurance. Rather than return to graduate school, he pursued and earned several professional insurance designations. Nationwide promoted him to District Claims Manager supervising claims adjusters and services in New York City, upstate New York, and Long Island. After a few years, he was recruited to serve on the personnel side of the business with a move to Syracuse, New York rising to the level of Personnel Manager. During his tenure in Syracuse, he was recruited as a member of the local graduate chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity in 1980. After three years in Syracuse, New York, he moved to Columbus Ohio to take a personnel management position in the Nationwide home office. His work in Columbus, Ohio, led to a promotion to Regional Personnel Manager for the company, now expanded to Nationwide/Wausau Insurance, supervising the personnel operations in eleven states in the central region of the country. At the ripe old age of fifty-five, he decided to take early retirement to focus on his leisure time passion of gardening. He enrolled in the agriculture program at Texas State University to enhance his knowledge and received a bachelor's degree in horticulture. The full-time focus on horticulture led to receiving the official designations of Master Gardener and a Master Naturalist. At his new home in New Braunfels, Texas, he cultivated the largest vegetable garden of his life, including the cultivation of a variety of fruit trees and a woodland park. He volunteered in the San Antonio community for several organizations including the Carver Community Cultural Center Garden, the San Antonio Botanical Center, the San Antonio African American Genealogy Society, and the Organization for Black Unity. He was also a diamond life member of the NAACP. In 1971, he married Sandra M. Perry (Mayo). Dr. Sandra Mayo is a retired administrator and professor emerita from Texas State University in San Marcos. At the time of his passing, they celebrated fifty-four and a half years of marriage. In 1974, they welcomed their son Kamal Rasheed, currently a civil engineer in Houston, TX. As a father, he mentored numerous young men in the Boy Scouts of America, including his son, Kamal and grandson Joshua, who both ascended to the rank of Eagle Scout. Cecil loved hunting and fishing in his youth with his brother Claude, son, and friends. He was an enthusiastic researcher of African American history, especially the Civil War. He loved westerns and listened frequently to Nat King Cole. At dinner, he preferred collard greens, okra, cornbread and sweet potato pie. Cecil leaves to morn his wife Sandra, his son Kamal, and daughter in law Deidre, his grandson Josh, granddaughter Ashley, and great granddaughter Aiyanna, two of his seven brothers Claude and John Mayo, numerous nieces and nephews including Gregory, Gina, Michael, Cookie, Donald, Quinton, Brenda, Tim and Frank, and numerous sisters in law, brothers in law, cousins, and friends across many states.

Tributes

Cecil Mayo

January 21, 1940 - February 27, 2026