Richard A. Sublette
Richard Ashmore Sublette lettered as a second team left end on the undefeated 1948 Clemson football team that defeated Missouri, 24-23, in the fourth annual Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida on January 1, 1949. He wore number 34. He is listed in Clemson media guides as "Dick" Sublette. During the 2007 football team reunion weekend, Sublette was the sole member of the undefeated 1948 team to walk down the Hill before the game with Boston College.
A native of Westminster, South Carolina, born November 14, 1928, he graduated with a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Textile Management in 1949, taking a managerial position at Judson Mill in west Greenville, South Carolina. During this period he pursued his suit of love for Julia Rose Wright of Westminster, then an upperclassman at Furman University. Called up for military service in the waning days of the Korean conflict on July 4, 1953, he and his (now) wife Julia Wright Sublette, (born at Natural Bridge, Virginia), chose to pursue a career in the United States Air Force with assignments at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, Reese AFB, Texas, Andrews AFB, Maryland, Norton AFB, California, Osan and Kunsan Air Bases in Korea where he served as a civil engineer, retiring as a Major after 21 years in the service, at Eglin AFB, Florida on October 31, 1973 as a 2816 - Staff Development Engineer, and a 2895z - Special Development Engineer. The Air Force sent him back to school twice, for an engineering degree at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, in the early 1960s, and to the "other" U.S.C., Southern California, during his Norton AFB assignment, for a Masters in aerospace management. Upon retirement from the military in late 1973, he served 18 years as an environmental engineer with the State of Florida's Department of Pollution Control, later the Department of Environmental Regulation, working out of Pensacola, Gulf Breeze, and, finally, Panama City. His office handled the dredge and fill paperwork required for sinking "Bruce" the shark's control sled on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico during the filming of Jaws 2 in 1977.
He is retired in Shalimar, Florida. His wife of 56 years, Dr.Julia Rose Wright Sublette, succumbed to cancer January 27, 2009. She was 79.
Sublette is a member of the Block "C" Club, Tiger Letterwinners Association, the Air Force Association and IPTAY. He is an avid historian of geneology and of the War Between the States and has taught adult learning classes in the subject. He is an active member of the Shalimar Methodist Church. The Sublettes have three sons, Christopher Mark, Carey Patrick, and Wright Daniel, and two granddaughters. Their daughter, Sylvia Judith Sublette Bennett, passed away on April 14, 2007, age 45, after a long illness. She was interred near her grandmothers in the Baptist Church Memorial Park in Westminster, South Carolina.
