No matter what was going on in Ed Menifee’s life, his philosophy that each day was better than the previous one, never wavered.
“As a 12-year-old, hearing someone say ‘it’s the best day of my life,’ well, that makes an impression,” said William T. White IV, of meeting Menifee 22 years ago. “And it wasn’t just something he said, it was what he meant. For him, every day was a new day and another chance to get it right.”
White first met Menifee in the 1980s, when he was a participant in the Southwest Atlanta Youth Business Organization that Menifee founded. The organization, widely known as SWAYBO, taught youth between 12- and 18-years-old about business, finance and free enterprise. Participants not only learned how to start their own businesses, but Menifee showed them a different way of life, White said.
Even as cancer attacked Menifee’s body, he kept his optimistic outlook, said his wife Michelle Jordan Menifee.
“Even as he lay there on his bed dying, the doctors and nurses would come in for motivation, because that is what he gave them, motivation,” she said. “But for Ed, it was more than motivation, it was life.”
Edward Menifee of Stockbridge, died Feb. 7 of complications from cancer. He was 69.
A memorial service is planned for 11 a.m. Saturday at Elizabeth Baptist Church, Atlanta. Willie A. Watkins Historical West End Chapel was in charge of cremation arrangements.
A native of Auburn, Ala., Menifee was a natural planner and organizer, his wife said. He graduated from what is now Tuskegee University in 1967 with a business management degree. Between serving in the Army during the Vietnam Conflict and earning a master’s degree from the University of Utah, Menifee married in 1972. He and his wife, Rose, had four children together and remained married until she died in 1996. Menifee married his current wife, Michelle, in 2007.
Menifee had a remarkable capacity for family, said Anne Brown who had more than one child in his SWAYBO program.
“When I say he treated us like family, I mean he would ask about my sisters and brothers and would stop by and see them on his way to Alabama,” she said. “Ed was really a special person. I really don’t know how he cared so deeply about so many people, but he did.”
That care extended to many members of the greater community, Michelle Menifee said.
“He was very giving and he didn’t want to see anyone go without,” she said.
Ed Menifee’s generosity can be seen through the assistance provided through various organizations with which he worked and established. He was heavily involved with a program through the prison system in Georgia called Bar Association Support to Improve Correctional Services, also known as B.A.S.I.C.S. He also formed a group called First Thursday Society, which offered small grants to people who need financial assistance.
Michelle Menifee said she believes all of her husband’s work will continue even though he is gone.
“He empowered enough people in the community that these things will live on,” she said.
In addition to his second wife, Menifee is survived by children from his first marriage, Edward Menifee Jr. of Marietta, Illya Menifee of Douglasville, and Terese Menifee and Joshua Menifee, both of Atlanta; siblings, Calvin Menifee, Alva Menifee Thomas, Beverly Johnson, and Donald Menifee, all of Auburn, and Deborah Lyles of Opelika, Ala.; and five grandchildren.
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