Mr. Crispus Carey Nix

Obituary For Mr. Crispus Carey Nix

Mr. Crispus Carey Nix, a resident of Wetumpka, AL., passed away March 10, 2024. A graveside funeral service will be held Monday, March 18, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. in Alabama National Cemetery, Montevallo, AL.

OBITUARY

Colonel (U. S. Army, Retired) Crispus Carey Nix was born March 7,1931 to the late Comer Payton Nix and Jimmie Mae Ormand Nix in Greenville, Alabama in Butler County. He was the seventh of nine children born from this union.

Crispus was educated in the public school of Greenville, Alabama and graduated from Lomax-Hannon High School. After finishing high school, he was drafted and served as an Infantryman in the Korean War. Using his GI Bill, he attended Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) and received a Bachelor of Science Degree. He became a Distinguished Military Graduate and achieved the honor of becoming the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) Battalion Commander. He was the first Tuskegee ROTC student to receive a Regular Army Commission in the Military Police Corps.

Over the years, while serving in the Army, he received additional training and education from the Military Police Officer School Career Course, Fort Gordon, Georgia, the Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and a Master of Science Degree in Vocational Rehabilitation, South Carolina State University, Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Colonel Nix served in key military law enforcement positions throughout the United States, Europe and the Far East to include: Commander, Correctional Facility, Fort Sheridan, Illinois; Deputy Provost Marshal, I Corps, Republic of Korea; Troop Commander, First Guard Company (now the 705th Military Police Battalion), U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; Area Provost Marshal of Military Region IV, Republic of Vietnam; Provost Marshal, Fort Jackson, South Carolina; Provost Marshal, 2nd Infantry Division, Republic of Korea; and both Deputy Commandant and Commandant, U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Colonel Nix served in both the Korean and Vietnam wars and during his military service earned numerous awards and decorations. Chief among them: the Legion of Merit; the Bronze Star Medal; the Meritorious Service Medal; the Army Commendation Medal; the Parachutist Badge and the US Army Combat Infantry Badge.

Upon retiring from the military, he accepted a civilian position as the Warden of the only maximum-security facility in Fort Madison, Iowa. He was the first black Warden in the state of Iowa.

Colonel Nix is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated, the American Correctional Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Retired Military Police Officers Association, The Veterans of Foreign Wars, and many other social and political organizations.

On November 23, 1957, he married his college sweetheart, Edna E. Bailey of Meridian, Mississippi, who was a student at Tuskegee University.

He is survived by his son, Christopher David Nix; sister-in-law: Annie Nix of Garfield Heights, Ohio; brother-in-law, Melvin Brown of Saint Paul, Minnesota and a host of nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his father and mother; his wife of 61 years, Edna Bailey Nix; brothers: Fleming, Pettis, Roscoe and Comer; sisters: Eunice Imogene Armstrong, Edith Frances Tolliver, Portia Vashti McElrath, and Anita Mae Jackson.

Crispus was an excellent student who lettered in football for the Golden Tigers and was inducted into the Tuskegee Athletic Hall of Fame and the Tuskegee Tiger Battalion ROTC Hall of Fame. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Tuskegee University.

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