Jean Martin Sims

president of Southland Pecan Co., died Dec.

Bessemer, and lived at Forest Station in what is now the city of

High in 1938, where she was class salutatorian, she went to work at

Birmingham Electric (now a part of Alabama Power and the Southern

Marine who had recently returned from the South Pacific where he

served with the First Marine Division at Guadalcanal and Cape

Southland Pecan Co., growing it to the third largest pecan

processor in the state. In a day when women very rarely served on a

corporate board, Sims broke new ground. The company was sold in

1973, and the couple retired to their estate, Great Oaks, near

family were members of Wilkes Baptist Church in Midfield, and later

Vernant Park Baptist Church, which is located near Magnolia

Southern Baptist Convention was near and dear to her heart, and she

served in a number of positions within the churches she was a part

of. Sims was the associational director of WMU for Baldwin County,

and during her term she visited each of the association’s 61

she taught a two-year-old Sunday School class, in addition to a

Church Training class for young

Martin Sims; a daughter-in-law, Cedelia J. Sims R.N.; two

granddaughters, Lacey E. Sims and Selena A. Parks B.S.N.; a

grandson-in-law, Jeromy Parks; and a great-grandson, Jacob Louis

a.m., at Vernant Park Baptist, with the Rev. Bill Stephens

at Valhalla Cemetery in Midfield at 11 a.m. on Dec.

that donations be made to the Gideons, Vernant Park Baptist Church,