Funeral services for Frederick Joseph “Rick” Smythe, age 80, will be held Sunday, July 5, at 4:00 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Leland, with burial to follow on Hebe Plantation. He died on Wednesday, July 1, 2026, on his farm near Tribbett, Mississippi. Services are under the direction of Boone Funeral Home, Leland.
Rick was born at King’s Daughters Hospital in Greenville on May 23, 1946, the son of Daniel Lafayette Smythe and Margaret Kulicka Smythe of Tribbett. Smythe was a fourth-generation Delta farmer. He was educated in the Leland public schools, at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, and at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he graduated with a degree in political science in 1968. He served in the United States Navy. Farmer and father, Smythe was a mainstay of life in Washington County. He served on the Leland Board of Aldermen, was active in the Delta Council and the Producers’ Information Exchange, coached Little League, and in recent years, with his family, undertook a renaissance of downtown Leland. He was a longtime vestryman, treasurer, and warden of St. John’s Episcopal Church.
At Episcopal High School he belonged to the Waiters’ Guild. A proud Sewanee alumnus, at the University he was president of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, a dormitory proctor, and a member of the Red Ribbon Society and of the Highlanders. Smythe was a devoted student of Civil War history, with a particular fondness for the works of Shelby Foote and Andrew Lytle.
He is survived by his wife, Sherry Hawkins Smythe; five children, Keith (Jon), May (David), Will (Ann Marie), Sarah, and Carter (Michelle); and nine grandchildren, Sam, Mary, and Maggie; Rick, Andrew, and Daniel; Charlotte Carter, Hawkins, and Kate; his brother Dan Smythe; his sister Hebe Smythe Splane; his nephew Dan Smythe (Shana) and their children Betty, Lily and Sonny; his niece Hebe Doneski (Keith); his nieces Margaret and Grayson Splane; his niece Catharine Monroe (Matt) and Catharine’s children Cameron, Grace and David McDonald; his niece Annette Smythe and her children Dan and Randolph; his brother-in-law Bruce Hawkins (Kathy) and their children Jeff Hawkins (Ashley) and Brit Barone (Mike); his sister-in-law Jennifer Elmore (Jerome) and Jennifer’s children Blake (Preslee) and Madeline Magee. He is predeceased by his brother Randolph and nephew Dan Smythe.