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ORANGEBURG -- His father woke Ken Middleton in the wee hours of the morning and sent him as a child to the darkened woods to retrieve tools left outside, the son remembered Wednesday.
"I left them, and I had to literally go out with a flashlight and get them, because that was the right thing to do," Middleton said. His father, Earl Matthew Middleton, 88, died Tuesday at his home after a brief illness.
Earl Middleton is thought to be a descendent of slaves at Middleton Plantation in Charleston.
The principles by which Earl Middleton lived led him to train with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II and to serve as a state legislator for Orangeburg District 95 from 1975 to 1984. They guided him through...