"Lockie" Louise Hutchins Gregory

She was born to Christine and Louis Hutchins on January 7, 1941, in Meridian, MS.

With the help of two semesters at Hinds Jr. College, Lockie received her BA degree in three years from Millsaps College in Jackson, MS. She got her first year of graduate school education at the Graduate School of Social Welfare at LSU and went to work in Jackson, Booneville, and Tupelo for a year.

Lockie was born and raised in Mississippi. Hating the Jim Crow regime and the climate of the culture, and after doing what she could against the system, she ran away from the state.

Lockie met and married Greg (Harold Dwayne) Gregory and went on to her second graduate year at the Jane Addams School of Social Work at the University of Illinois in Champagne-Urbana, IL. Her Masters Degree emphasis is Psychiatric Social Work.

Lockie and Greg bore two sons, H. Boden Gregory and Judson B. Gregory, who now reside in San Francisco, CA. H. earned his BA at UC Berkeley and Jud his Masters at FSU.

With her marriage dissolved, Lockie went to work as a social worker in Tucson, AZ, where she met Dale Cowie and later married him. Soon they took an extensive trip (looking for a home) in a remodeled school bus and ended up in Fort Walton Beach where they have resided for 43 years.

Lockie and Dale owned and operated Fire Control, Inc. from 1978 - 1995, to install and inspect automatic fire sprinkler systems in commercial businesses. In 1995 they sold the inspection portion of the business to a local company, and Dale went to work for that company as the license holder.

Retired then, Lockie stayed home and produced two novels that remain on Kindle: “Farish Street” and “Doggies and Kitties.” “Farish Street” is the story of growing up Jim Crow and the horrific murder of her hero, her beloved Dad. “Doggies and Kitties” is a fictional story about the deep south's culture climate as well as Lockie's dream of black and white people working together to achieve good - a dream that had to remain just that for several years to come.

In her retirement years Lockie pursued her most passionate activity, writing. She forsook some of her dancing and training as a singer because with the Obama years, Jim Crow and racism began to come out of the cracks again. So, Lockie began a campaign of writing Letters to the Editor (one a month for many years) and some articles for the Northwest Florida Daily News.

Her physical ailments increasing, she struggled on a cripple foot, to dance, to write, and sometimes to sing, and to always talk to the countless number of birds around her home.

Lockie was preceded in this world departure by her parents, Christine (Hutchins) Wright and Louis Hutchins. Remaining in this world are her two sons, H. Boden Gregory and Judson B. Gregory, sisters Carolyn Tarpley and Bebe Arnold, and her husband of 43 years, Dale R. Cowie.

Special Thanks to Emerald Coast Hospice and Home Instead. Cremation is entrusted to Emerald Coast Funeral Home.

There will be a special memorial and celebration of life service held in the near future to be determined and announced by the family.

Expressions of love and sympathy may be viewed and placed at www.emeraldcoastfuneralhome.com

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