Neil Lane Pipkin Sr.

Neil Lane Pipkin Sr., 92 passed away Saturday, November 23, 2024, at Simpson General Hospital in Mendenhall. Funeral services will be held at Chancellor Funeral Home in Florence. Visitation will be held Tuesday, November 26 from 12:30 to 2:30 followed by the funeral at 2:30. Burial will follow in the Lane Family Plot in Richland Cemetery.

Neil Lane Pipkin Sr. was born in Memphis Tennessee on April 10, 1932, the fourth son of Alma Lane and Charles Joseph Pipkin. His father was a gifted electrician and HVAC technician who was known as "Pip" to his customers. When he started teaching, Neil chose to be called "Mr. Pip" by his students.

Neil's mother was a "housewife" and expert seamstress. She could have been well known in dressmaking circles but chose, instead, to make her home and family her first priorities in life.

Neil attended public schools in Memphis and later, Bartlett, Tennessee. This move to Bartlett proved to be a life-changing experience for him because it provided him with his first real opportunity to learn music and how to play a musical instrument. Because the school provided bass horns (tubas) at no cost he decided to make that his instrument. He was in the seventh grade by this time and joined several others in a beginner band class. He was promoted into the high school band the next year and soon became the first chair player in the bass horn section of the famous Bartlett High School Band directed by Mr. A.E. McClain.

In his junior year of high school he purchased a string bass, took three private lessons, and began to play bass in the high school and other dance bands and combos and made pocket money as a professional musician.

Neil served as drum major of the Bartlett High School Band his senior year in high school as well as being the first-chair player in the tuba section for five years. He doubled on string bass in the concert band his senior year as well.

Soon after his high school graduation at Bartlett his family moved to Jackson, Mississippi where he attended Millsaps College. He graduated there with a double major in Music Theory and English. He was recruited to play tuba in the Jackson Symphony Orchestra (predecessor of the Mississippi Symphony). A year later he began to play string bass with the symphony on concert selections. This developed into his playing with the symphony for 22 concert seasons. During those years he continued to play with various local dance bands as well as a sideline to his day-time jobs and played bass in the Jackson Opera Guild and performed with the Hinds Junior College Orchestra on many occasions. He played in the Jackson Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra for several years as well.

He performed as string bassist with many college and high school musical productions over the years and was the local choice to play string bass with Holiday on Ice in several of their yearly performances in Jackson. He was the local bassist for several other professional groups including Ice Capades. Once he had the pleasure of playing tuba with the famous Ringling Brothers, Barnum, and Bailey Circus when they performed in Jackson.

Neil taught instrumental music and was band director at Mississippi School for the Blind his senior year (1953/54) in college. He served as High School Band Director in Prentiss MS for eight years (1954-1962) and was High School Band Director in Florence MS for three years in the late 1970's as well. The final years of his music career were spent playing in the orchestra at First Baptist Church Jackson and with the Jules Barlow dance band, the Skeets McWilliams trio, and other combos. He was a member of the New Bourbon Street Jazz Society for a number of years as well.

As a part of his church membership, he taught Sunday school classes at Prentiss Methodist Church, Wesley United Methodist in Jackson, Marvin United Methodist Church in Florence, and First Baptist Church, Jackson. In his other career. Neil worked in Jackson MS in electronic data processing. He was a field engineer for IBM (1962-1972) and Telex Corp (1972-1976). While with IBM he received three "IBMI Means Service Awards" and was promoted to senior customer engineer and later to field manager.

For several years he was the Electronics Maintenance Manager for School Pictures, Inc. in Jackson. He also taught Electronics and Computer Science courses for Phillips Junior College during the 1980's.

Working for himself under the business name 'Neloi Electronics' he developed and sold several devices including electronic light controls, satellite antenna limit switches, fireplace heat exchangers, remote control keypads, and satellite antenna positioner control systems.

He invented and obtained a United States patent on a large dish satellite TV antenna positioner system, but it was never marketed because of the development of the Direct TV small dish system which spelled the doom of the large dish satellite TV antenna era.

Neil was pre-deceased by both parents, his three brothers, Charles Joseph Pipkin Jr. who died in childhood. Arthur Pipkin who died in infancy, and Cyril M. Pipkin, who lived to the age of 93, his daughter, Annette Pipkin Davis, his son, Mark Joseph Pipkin, and his wife of 63 plus years, Joan Wren Pipkin.

He is survived by his son, Neil Lane Pipkin Jr. (Suzanne); his devoted son in law, Kevin Davis (Stacey): grandchildren, Greg Pipkin, Kent Pipkin, Cody Collins, Sean Collins, Jacob Davis, and Emily Arthur, and great-grandchildren Liam Pipkin, Sebastian Pipkin, Kaden Pipkin and Hunter Pipkin; and honorary grandchildren Ryan Verdecchia and Anna Adkins.