Ellington

Of all the ways one could begin to describe Beverly Scurlock, it is hard to believe that "quiet" would be one of them. Yet, that's what Mark Scurlock first noticed about her when the two met at the student union grill at Coahoma Junior College in 1983.

"She was a quiet person, and I kind of admired that, because I'm kind of a talker myself," Mark, owner of Scurlock's Donuts and Bakery, recalls.

One year after they met, Beverly and Mark were married on Dec. 27, 1984, and the two moved to Jackson with their family in June 1985.

Later, after Mark was not given the raise he had been promised at a Jackson donut shop, he remembers coming home to tell Beverly the news as well as his thoughts on starting a new business, and she was fully supportive.

"It's not like (she said) 'you better keep your job' or 'you know you've got a family to take care of.' Her concern was for seeing me do better, and then, I guess, the family doing better all together," Mark recalls.

Although she already owned her business, Exclusive Hair Care--a one-chair hair salon operated out of the closed-in back porch at the Scurlock's Jackson home--Beverly put a lot of time into Scurlock's donut shop. Eventually, she would spend more time in their donut shop than her hair salon.

"She just had a passion for the city of Jackson and had a passion for seeing Jackson become a great city, and our business being part of that success was a good thing, because we were kind of an example as far as someone starting out with almost nothing and, you know, being able to move up with some success," Mark says.

She was a Christian woman, too.

"She really was concerned about people getting to know God. That was one of her passions," says Mark, adding that she was responsible for having Bible classes at the shop after-hours.

Mark describes Beverly as a loving, firm, and honest mother and as a wife who had his back. When she and Mark met, she had a daughter Lutaya, now 34, and Mark had a daughter, Tiffany, now 27. With Mark, she had two boys - Mark Jr., 26, and Marquis, 16. Beverly passed away May 17, at the age of 55 from cancer.

Mark says it will be a hard adjustment without her.

"It's something that I know she would want me to do, to keep going on and make the business here a great success, because I also have a 16-year-old son I've got to finish raising and put in college. So with her not being there, it's going to motivate me even more, because I know that's what she would want me to do," he says.

Today is National Donut Day. The Salvation Army started National Donut Day in 1938 to honor women who served donuts to soldiers in Word War I.

Previous Comments

ID

158042

Comment

RIP Mrs. Scurlock! Love you Lutaya! MUAH!

Author

Queen601

Date

2010-06-04T12:03:35-06:00