Walter E. Mote

January 18, 1955 – October 31, 2026

Walter Everette Mote, 71, originally of Lake Park, Georgia, and lately of Little Mountain, South Carolina, passed away Saturday, October 31, 2026, at 1:35 p.m. at Lexington Medical Center, surrounded by the love of his son, Will; his wife, Tami; and her best friend, Cindi Ray Odham of Middleburg, Florida.

Walt was born in Lowndes County to William O. "W.O." and Elizabeth "Ibby" Mote. As a boy he was his father's steady companion on coon hunts, so steady that the pair made the pages of the Valdosta Times in 1967, in a feature written by Charles Postell. Neither man could have guessed that the reporter would one day be Walt's father-in-law.

He graduated from Lowndes High School in 1973, a proud Viking, and enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he served four years. He was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and in Korea. Afterward he studied diesel mechanics at Valdosta Tech, a brief detour for a man whose gifts ran more toward the artistic. He found his craft in glass: more than twenty years with Century Glass and Ace Glass of Irmo, S.C. He loved the work because it let him create, and each installation carried his own demand for quality. Tami says he always pointed out the things in the background that nobody else noticed. He simply saw the world differently, and he made other people see it that way too.

He was a patriot and a man of lively political discourse and national pride, and he worked hard his whole life.

Walt met Tami in 1986 at the Adel childhood home of her best friend, Cindi, and they married in 1987. She remembers every single thing he was wearing that night. The two married only after a few months and have been together ever since. He complained often and affectionately about his wife's loud mouth, and it is fitting that the phone has barely stopped ringing since, with condolences arriving full of tears and the kind of howling laughter he would have rolled his eyes at and loved.

Music was the house. The little house on the hill in Little Mountain became the gathering place for Will, his friends, and their parents on countless evenings and holidays, with Walt and Tami playing guitar and singing alongside friends from all over. Friends came early and left late, drawn by his grilling, extraordinary and entirely deliberate. Every January 18 was reserved for celebrating "Waldo's" birthday. Those friends had their babies in the same seasons, and the gatherings carried on through pregnancies, toddlers, and grown children. It was, by any measure, a joyful, loving childhood set to music.

Will carries all of it forward: the storytelling, the broad shoulders, and the voice. He is now the vocalist for Jacksonville recording artists Mote & the Wolf. Despite failing health, Walt made the trip to Jacksonville's historic Vooswar, a segregation-era, Black-owned landmark turned intimate stage for rising artists, to hear one of his son's first live shows. It was the first and the last, and he wouldn't have missed it for the world. Walt's guitars now pass to Will, though they'll need restringing, since Will plays left-handed. Will has also taken up his father's storytelling in his conversation, his work, and his music.

Walt is survived by his wife of 40 years, Tami (Postell Spearman) Mote; his son, William Giddens "Will" Mote and grandson Waylon Anders Mote of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida; his oldest brother, William O. "Billy" (Cheryl) Mote Jr. of Beaufort, S.C.; his sister Peggy (Doran) Bland of Lake Park; and his youngest sister, Trish (Stephen) Clayton, also of Lake Park. He also leaves nephews Bill and Tim, nieces Nikki and Cindi, and a large and colorful family of cousins. He was preceded in death by his parents, W.O. and Ibby.

A military service will be held Friday, December 11, at 1:00 p.m. at Ft. Jackson Memorial Cemetery. Following cremation, his cremains will be interred at Fort Jackson National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests gifts to the Lexington Medical Center ICU team who cared for Walt to the Lexington Medical Center Foundation.