Sea Pines hospitality icon ‘Happy’ Mitchell dies after setting gold standard on Hilton Head

Earl “Happy” Mitchell, whose cheerful service helped put Hilton Head Island on the world’s tourism map in 45 years as the de facto social ambassador of Sea Pines Resort, died Tuesday at his home on the same island road where he was born 76 years ago.

The nickname reflects his broad smile and infectious laugh that were trademarks of a career that began serving at oyster roasts at the William Hilton Inn in 1963, before he graduated from high school.

He was head server at the Harbour Town Grill in the original Harbour Town Clubhouse for 25 years, and then its successor, The Links, An American Grill, in the grand new clubhouse.

The year before he retired in 2009, Earl Henry “Happy” Mitchell was named the South Carolina Hospitality Employee of the Year by the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.

On Hilton Head, Mitchell bridged two worlds: the quiet Gullah life in the creeks and fields of a bridgeless island with no electricity or phone service, and the slick scene at Harbour Town where Fortune 500 corporations planned their events around his schedule, so “Happy” could tend bar and make everyone feel at home.

“Treat everyone like you would want to be treated in your own home,” he said. “Treat them like you would like to be treated when you go out to eat.”

To the flocks of interns and new hires he nurtured at Sea Pines, he would say: “It’s not about money. It’s how you treat people. The money will come.”

‘The Happy’ Award

Hilton Head should honor the man whose work ethic and attitude set a gold standard for the industry that reversed the island’s fortunes.

The local hospitality industry should recognize its best ambassador each year by giving them an award named for Happy Mitchell. It should be presented at the Chamber of Commerce’s annual dinner dance. It might be called the Happy Mitchell Golden Service Award because that would reflect its namesake’s philosophy.

It should be an honor for an island worker to receive “The Happy.”

The award would recognize the outsized role of the front-line workers in the global battle for tourism dollars.

Following the coronavirus pandemic, resort owners are now painfully aware of the value of good workers.

But as I wrote during the festive days at Harbour Town when the PGA Tour came to town for the 2014 RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing, “The Happy” would do more than honor its namesake and those who reflect his spirit.

It also would stand as a symbol of the immeasurable contribution native Hilton Head Islanders have made in creating the resort economy that is now the leading industry in the community and the state.

Two worlds

Baby Earl was born in 1945 into the hands of midwife Adrianna Ford. He was one of Evelina Mitchell’s 11 children.

Both of those women have streets on the island named for them, including the street off Marshland Road in the Gardner community, where Happy was born, and where he died three days prior to his 51st anniversary to Brenda Holmes Mitchell.

Earl and Brenda, both from families several generations deep on Hilton Head, met in school. He graduated from segregated Michael C. Riley High in Bluffton in 1965. She graduated three years later from the “white” school, H.E. McCracken High, where she transferred under voluntary integration.

Brenda was a Sea Pines receptionist for almost 20 years and then got a nursing degree and has worked at TidePointe and Hilton Head Hospital.

Evelina Mitchell shucked oysters across the street from the homeplace for Pete and Geneva Hudson and Lynn L. “Buck” Smith, where the Old Oyster Factory restaurant stands today on Broad Creek.

Earl learned from “primers” and “hardbacks” in small community schools under teachers like Diogenes Singleton, Rosalee Barnwell and “Professor (Isaac) Wilborn.”

“We grew up in the field, harvesting our own vineyard,” he told me. “We grew up knowing how to plow, knowing how to plant, knowing how to pick butter beans and okra.”

They bogged into the river to net crabs, put them in burlap sacks and take them home to boil, or to Charlie Simmons’ “Big Star” store so he could take them to market in Savannah.

They called him “Mitch” when he played on the community baseball teams, learning a three-finger sidearm pitch from Tom Cohen.

Then one hot day as young Earl and his friends were walking to swim at Bradley Beach, men in white shirts came down the lonely road in a big car.

A hub cap flew off and the young man Earl returned it to was Charles E. Fraser — the visionary who was busy creating Sea Pines from swampy woods.

Together, they would set history.

‘A loved dude’

Charles and Mary Fraser always called Happy by his real name, Earl.

Mary insisted that Earl work their many dinner parties as visitors were enticed to build a new community.

Mitchell would to go on to wait on children of parents who had first met him when they were children.

“He was a loved dude,” said Chuck Foxx, whose 17 years of serving at Sea Pines overlapped with Mitchell’s for five years. “He was hospitality. That’s what he was. He made everybody feel special.”

Brenda Mitchell said her husband died of heart failure with his family around him, though he was up and about and without pain until the day he died.

He had returned to the river in his retirement, helping a brother harvest shrimp, crabs and oysters.

But he was still called by some former customers, and he was asked to do special catering or bartending jobs at Harbour Town during the Heritage.

“He kept them coming,” Brenda said.

David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com.