CHARLES F. ATKINSON, 76 Longtime attorney, community activist

WARREN -- A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Sunday in Mountain View Presbyterian Church, Las Vegas, for Atty. Charles F. Atkinson, 76, of 2600 Desert Butte Drive, Sun City at Summerlin, Las Vegas, Nev., formerly of Warren, who died Wednesday at home after a two-year illness.
Mr. Atkinson was born July 11, 1924, in Warren, a son of G. Fred and Mayme Wyles Atkinson. He moved to Sun City in 1993.
He attended Warren schools until the eighth grade, when he moved to Cincinnati, where he graduated from Withrow High School in 1942. He worked at Packard Electric in Warren before entering the Army in 1943.
His unit, the Rainbow Division of the 42nd Infantry, was shipped overseas on Thanksgiving Day 1944 and he was injured and captured Jan. 7, 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge. He was listed as missing in action until May 7, 1945.
Before he was discharged from the Army, he was assigned as an honor guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery and sometimes served as a military policeman at the White House gates.
Using the GI Bill, Atkinson enrolled at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where in 1948 he received a bachelor of arts degree in business, specializing in accounting and economics.
Before returning to Warren, he was a tax attorney with American Steel & amp; Wire Division of U.S. Steel in Cleveland from 1950 to 1953. In 1960, he and Atty. Melvin J. Woodford formed the Atkinson & amp; Woodford Law firm in Warren, which continued until Woodford's illness and retirement in 1985.
Atkinson was president of the Trumbull County Bar Association, secretary-treasurer of the Trumbull County Law Library Association, and served a six-year term on the Ohio Supreme Court Disciplinary Council for Grievances against lawyers and judges.
In 1986, he was one of 15 delegates invited by the Citizen Ambassador Program, People to People International, to study, compare and discuss legal systems in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Active in the community, Atkinson served as president and-or as a board member of the Warren-Trumbull County Library Board, American Cancer Society, National Polio Foundation, Citizens for Good Government, Warren Community Forum, American Red Cross, Warren Civil Service Commission and Warren Republican Men's Club.
He participated in United Appeal and YMCA membership drives, was adjutant of Clarence Hyde American Legion Post 278, and a member of the Lions, Elks and Buckeye clubs and the Trumbull Country Club in Warren.
He was a Sunday school teacher and superintendent and lay preacher at First Baptist Church of Warren, where he served as chairman of the building committee for 27 years.
In Sun City, he also was a teacher and Sunday school superintendent, a member of the personnel committee and a board member of the Go-Getters social club at Mountain View Presbyterian Church.
He was scoutmaster at First Baptist Church for several years before being elected president of the Western Reserve Council, Boy Scouts of American here. He was awarded the BSA Silver Beaver Award and the Warren Area Jaycees Distinguished Service Award, both in 1956.
He was a member of the Golden Gate Masonic Lodge at Chagrin Falls and the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite Valley of Youngstown.
Besides his wife, the former Beverly Moon, whom he married May 13, 1944, he leaves a son, Dr. Thomas T. of Marion, N.C.; a daughter, Amy Atkinson Pettigrew of Uniontown, Ohio; and five grandchildren.
A brother, Benjamin P., is deceased.
Contributions may be made to the donor's favorite charity. Arrangements are by the Neptune Society of Nevada in Las Vegas.
3/9/01