When Mike Wilson died while driving to work on a February morning, Lexington County lost an under-the-radar, but highly effective, public servant.

Wilson, 53, a civil engineer and father of two sons, died when a suspected jewelry thief fleeing police slammed into his state-issued Chevrolet Blazer on the Edmund Highway.

Most Lexington residents probably did not know they had lost the man who for nearly two decades was responsible for keeping 1,500 miles of state roads in their county smooth and safe.

But Wilson’s name soon will be displayed at the S.C. Transportation Department’s primary maintenance building — his former office — on Park Road in downtown Lexington.

“We miss him every day,” said Jack Craft, Wilson’s assistant for 18 years. “We have (workplace) safety meetings once a month, and it’s just not the same with Mike not being there to run the meetings.”

Wilson left a regretful son, an angry mother, an ailing father and a host of mourning colleagues.

His mother, Geralene Wilson, is upset that police would chase a suspect 50 miles for two rings stolen from a jewelry store.

“It was too long a chase,” she said. “They should have given it up just a little bit sooner. ... I think my son would still be here.”

Mike Wilson was her firstborn of five children. It helps that someone other than the family will remember him, the 72-year-old said.

“If they are going to dedicate anything for my son, that will make me feel better because he was a good fella and he worked real hard for the Highway Department,” she said.

DEDICATED WORKER

It is for his work that the Transportation Department commissioners are to honor Wilson.

He was a common-sense guy who applied that trait to the practical demands of upkeep on roads and bridges, as well as the public relations part of his job, colleagues said.

Wilson was the kind of government servant who knew how to talk with the public.

He supervised 120 people who patched potholes, cleared ditches and erected signs along state-maintained roads and bridges.

“He was on call 24 hours a day and seven days a week,” Craft said. “He did a good job for the department and for Lexington County.”

County public works director John Fechtel often coordinated with Wilson.

“The working relationship (with the state) did improve under Mike’s tenure,” he said.

Wilson was doing his job Feb. 16 when James C. Cobbert, 21, lost control of a stolen, speeding Ford Focus, then hit and rolled Wilson’s SUV, according to police.

The impact tore Wilson from his seat belt and threw him out the rear window, said son Jamie Wilson, 24.

Police had chased the car from North Augusta in Aiken County, where Cobbert was suspected of stealing the rings.

Cobbert is charged with five offenses in the collision, including reckless homicide and running from the scene of a fatal wreck, the Highway Patrol said.

A trial date has not been set. If convicted, Cobbert faces as much as 25 years in prison on the fleeing charges.

PUBLIC PATIENCE

Sen. Jake Knotts, R-Lexington, is among those who wanted the building to bear Wilson’s name.

Knotts recalls a rare moment when Wilson’s patience with the public failed to calm a particularly irate resident who wanted a drainage pipe cleared.

“He needs some Lexingtonian English,” Knotts recalls Wilson saying about the man who insisted the problem be fixed his way.

Knotts, a former policeman known for being blunt, arranged a three-way telephone conversation with the resident.

After appealing to the man’s better side, the senator said he realized why Wilson was having trouble satisfying him.

“There’s a part left out of this equation, and that is listening,” Knotts told the resident. “What part of ‘no’ do you not understand — the ‘n’ or the ‘o’?”

The man changed his attitude, and Wilson made the repairs he had been recommending.

“Mike had helped me so many times that I was glad to get him off Mike’s back,” Knotts said. “The Lexingtonian English got through.”

STRING OF TRAGEDIES

Wilson’s death was the latest in a series of family hardships.

His oldest son, Shawn, 27, died of cancer in October 2004.

Wilson had helped him through the illness, according to his sister, Chyrell Sipes.

Wilson repeatedly drove his mentally challenged sonto Duke University’s brain cancer treatment center, helped him get a job and took him to movies and dances, Sipes said.

A little more than a year after Shawn’s death, on the day Mike Wilson died, his father, James, was released from the hospital after removal of a cancerous lung, Sipes said.

Wilson’s mother, Geralene, has hired an attorney and a private investigator. She is debating whether to sue over her son’s death.

Jamie Wilson holds no grudges against the police. He just hates that he will not get to fully fix the seven years of strained relations with his father.

“I was a rebelling teenager,” he said. “I see now he was doing the right thing. We were getting closer.

“He put everybody before himself. I hope he’s proud of me one day.”

Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664.