Col. (Ret.) Claude Jennings Benner Jr.

A funeral with military honors will be held on Thursday, July 18, at 1 p.m. in the chapel of Hayes Barton Baptist Church, 1800 Glenwood Ave, Raleigh, North Carolina. The family will receive friends following the service at the church.

C.J. was born February 5, 1935 in Carthage, North Carolina, the third of four children to Claude Jennings and Bevie Mae (Corbett) Benner, Sr. He and his older sisters Ina Mae and Bettie and their younger sister Janice grew up in Raeford, North Carolina, attending Hoke County High where C.J. played football and basketball, graduating as his class salutatorian in 1953. In the fall of that year, he attended Wake Forest University as a history major, graduating in 1957. In December of that year, he entered the North Carolina National Guard, which led eventually to active duty military service. During his time at Southeastern Seminary (1960-63) in Wake Forest, North Carolina, he married Linda (May) Benner of LaGrange, North Carolina on November 24, 1962, beginning their married life in Raleigh, North Carolina. Upon his completion of seminary, C.J. and Linda moved to Franklin, Virginia, where he began service as an associate pastor at Franklin Baptist Church.

In November of 1966, C.J. and Linda welcomed the birth of their daughter Dawn Louise (Benner) Young while C.J. was on active military duty at Fort Lee, Virginia, followed by tours in Vietnam (1967-68) as well as Walter Reed Hospital (1968-1970). In 1970, C.J. chose to leave active military service for a civilian pastorate in Urbanna, Virginia. During the family's thirteen-year stay, son Stephen James Benner arrived in June 1971. C.J. continued his military service in the U.S. Army Reserve, and in 1976 he attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas as a reserve chaplain. In 1982, he accepted a call to serve the congregation of Westover Baptist Church in Manassas, Virginia, where he served for eighteen years before retiring in 1999; he also continued his reserve service, attaining the rank of full colonel and retiring in 1995.

In 2000, C.J. and Linda retired to Albemarle, North Carolina, where they lived for eleven years, during which time C.J. regularly served as a interim pastor for various area churches. In 2011, C.J. and Linda returned to Raleigh where their marriage had begun forty-nine years earlier, settling at the Oaks at Whitaker Glen and making Hayes Barton Baptist their church home, where they enjoyed participation in the sanctuary choir. C.J. departed this life survived by his wife Linda, his daughter Dawn Louise (Benner) Young of Charlotte, his son Stephen James Benner of Raleigh, as well as his grandchildren Nikita and Adrielle Benner of Raleigh, North Carolina and Thomas and Taylor Young of Charlotte, North Carolina, and his sister Ina Mae (Benner) Freeman of Pensacola, Florida, as well as three nephews and three nieces.

In lieu of flowers, anyone wishing to make a memorial donation can contribute to Gideons International for Bible distribution or to a veterans’ support group.

Arrangements by Brown-Wynne Funeral Home, Saint Mary's St., Raleigh, NC.