Obit – Joe Joe Burk
The Tanglewood Community and Smith County Commission Company’s most beloved friend, Joe Joe Burk departed this life suddenly Saturday morning March 28, 2026 after becoming gravely ill at his home in the Tanglewood Community. With C.P.R. to no avail, he was pronounced deceased at 7:56 a.m. at the Highpoint Health – Riverview @ Ascension Saint Thomas Emergency Department in Carthage.
Funeral services were conducted on Friday afternoon April 3rd from the Carthage Chapel of Sanderson Funeral Home with Eld. Jason Sloan and Eld. Darius Watkins from the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah Witnesses in the Tanglewood Community officiating. Joe Joe will be laid to rest with his father in the Anderson Memorial Gardens in Anderson, South Carolina.
He was born Joseph Tyrone Burk in Anderson South Carolina on July 29, 1978 and was the son of Mrs. Dorothy Burk Jones of the Tanglewood Community and the late Joe Allen Willingham Sr. who died in Anderson on June 4, 1984 at the age of 33.
Two brothers preceded him in death, Johnny Allen “J5” Burk who died at the age of 34 on June 8, 2013 and Daniel Isaac Burk who died at the age of 46 on February 16, 2025.
Joe Joe was a fixture at the Tanglewood Market and every Saturday on sale day at the Smith County livestock auction and was best known as the gentlemen riding his Cub Cadet mower for his mode of transportation.
He was a 2000 graduate of Smith County High School where he participated in the Special Olympics all four years and his junior and senior year was a member of the Future Farmers of America.
He was a longtime employee of Prospect in Gordonsville and where he was still employed at the time of his death.
Joe Joe was of the Southern Baptist faith.
Surviving in addition to his mother Dorothy are two sisters, Eliza (Liza) Burk and Melissa McGee and a brother, Jeffery McGee all of Anderson, South Carolina, a nephew rendered in the home, Joe Allen Willingham II and wife Misty of Gainesboro; special friends, James, Saba and Leah Crabtree of the Tanglewood Community; a host of nieces and nephews, too numerous to mention.
SANDERSON of CARTHAGE
