William Manning McDavit, 93, of Sunset Beach, North Carolina, died May 6, 2025, at McLeod Seacoast Hospital, Little River, South Carolina. Born December 16, 1931, in Franklin, New Jersey, Mr. McDavit moved to Sunset Beach in 1988, after retiring with 32 years of federal civil service. Mr. McDavit is survived by his wife, Mary Wood McDavit, a former Library Aide. Surviving are three children, Laura Barbano and her husband, Gary, Mary (Carolyn) McDavit and her husband, Guilherme Kurtz, and William (Mike) McDavit and his wife, Kim; three grandchildren, Kimberly, Luisa, and Grady; and one sister, Zelene Hutchison. A memorial service will be held at the Brunswick Funeral Service Chapel at 11 am, June 6, 2025, at 5229 Ocean Highway West, Shallotte, North Carolina. At 3 pm on the same day, a Celebration of Life will be held at VFW, 900 Carter Dr., SW, Calabash, North Carolina. Memorial donations may be made to the American Cancer Society (https://donate.cancer.org) or Wounded Warriors (https://www.woundedwarriorproject.org).  Bill met his cherished future bride, Mary Grace Wood, on a blind date while on assignment at the Anacostia Naval Station, Washington, DC. Married on December 16, 1952, the happy couple enjoyed a long life together for over 72 years. Bill was a US Navy civilian electronics communications specialist in Washington, DC, for most of his professional life. In 1955, Bill started working for the Navy on the high-tech goniometer antenna array, the Navy Space Program at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC. The military used this innovative technology to triangulate radio signals for navigation, intelligence gathering, and search and rescue. He was a member of an elite team responsible for developing and fielding the very first spy satellite during the Eisenhower Administration.  Friendly, informal, and likable, all who met and knew Bill (Mac or Fuzzy) or waited on him at a restaurant were instant friends. He tried his best to accept all people; if you knew Bill, he was your friend. Such generosity of heart also extended to long-distance support for a young Japanese foster child, Haruo Masahiro Teriu, in the 1960s. Because of his frequent government travels to Japan, Bill was able to visit his foster child on numerous occasions before the boy was reunited with his biological family. 

Bill cherished his retirement years with his beloved wife Mary and remained highly active in pursuing his hobbies and in playing leadership roles in civic society and local veteran organizations. He was an avid golfer (scored a hole-in-one at Rivers Edge in 2014!); a dedicated and spirited gardener; a methodical freshwater fisherman (for many years he annually joined his brother, cousin and friends for lake trout, bass and pike action on the remote Little Cedar Lake, Quebec, Canada); and served as president of his local homeowner’s association. He also helped lead the Calabash Veterans Golf Association.

An active member of the Calabash American Legion and VFW for a long time, William flipped hotcakes for many breakfast fundraising occasions. He never passed up an opportunity to raise funds for a charitable cause on the Links, or in the Legion or VFW pub!

He loved gardening in retirement, creating an oasis of azalea blossoms at his Sunset Beach home with his wife, Mary, and naming their property, “Azalea Sunset.” He cultivated, designated, and labeled more than 1,000 flower varieties on their homestead, in which at least one plant was in bloom at any time of the year. At its peak, Azalea Sunset was home to 900 azaleas, 162 camellias, and 30 rhododendrons. In a local newspaper column in 1993, Bill said, “You can lose more azaleas from kindness than from neglect.” Bill served as President of the Azalea Society of America four times and also found time to cultivate azaleas at VFW Post 7288 in Calabash.

As a young man, Bill served in the US Navy and saw combat action on the USS Toledo (CA-133), a Baltimore-class heavy cruiser, during the Korean War. He was honorably discharged on May 14, 1953, as a Fire-control Technician Third Class. He loved playing semi-professional sports during his active-duty years in the Navy (baseball, football, bowling), until his ailing back limited his competitive playing to golf.

While raising his three children with his wife in Oxon Hill, Maryland, he coached HS football and wrestling and was an active fundraiser for both high school teams.

His children fondly remember the Christmas Eve family tradition of dining out at a different nationality or ethnic cuisine restaurant in DC each year. Equally memorable and almost eclipsing holiday celebrations was his generosity in sharing unique gifts for the kids after returning home from one of his frequent trips abroad in the 1960s and 70s. Every overseas “TDY” and Bill’s treasured gifts were like another Christmas morning for his family after each return.

Bill loved cool jazz and was a lifelong collector of jazz recordings. His early interest in jazz stems from his high school days of sneaking out to the Bop City jazz club in NYC. In his later years, Bill collected and traded coins.

He also amassed an exotic mask collection and other souvenirs from his extensive travels to various countries around the world while working for the NRL during the Cold War. His official travels took him to the Aleutian Islands (Alaska), Japan, the Philippines, Iran, Scotland, Germany, Italy, France, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.