February 5, 2025
Howell Purvis of Purvis, a former Pearl River Community College student and member of PRCC’s Development Foundation board of directors, is a retired Special Agent with the United States Secret Service.
His is a career track you may not find in the college catalog. There were only 350 Secret Service agents like him in the entire country when he was hired in January, 1968.
His story began at The River, where the foundation was laid for a journey that would lead him to a role as one of the FBI’s most trusted leaders in a time of global conflict.
Purvis found himself a Special Agent with the Secret Service, after 10 years in the Navy and a tour of duty in Viet Nam.
During his time at Pearl River (1953-55), tuition was $61 a semester and that included meals. A Coke cost a nickel and a movie ticket was 15 cents. Purvis was a trumpet player in the band. The late Joe Ello was his band director and Garvin Johnston was the president. Purvis lived two years in dorms, the second in historic Huff Hall.
“What a great two years I had at Pearl River,” said Purvis. “We were a very close-knit group of students. You knew practically everybody on the campus. Back then it was a high school and a college, and we had 350 to 400 students. We had some real good professors and you received a very good background.”
Purvis, 90, took pre-med courses at PRCC. Since he did not have a car, he hitch hiked back and forth from his Purvis home.
Howell’s journey from Poplarville to Washington, D.C., seemed quick to a man who still to this day cherishes talking about his job, which spanned six presidents (Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald W. Reagan and George Bush).
Reagan was his favorite. Said Purvis, “He was the most friendly. He always made me feel comfortable around him.”
While at PRCC, he was recruited into the Navy as a Naval Aviation Cadet (NAVCAD), entering flight training in November, 1955. He received his Navy Wings of Gold and was Commissioned an officer and Naval Aviator in June, 1957. After four years in the Navy, he got out and finished his degree in education from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1961. He re-entered the Navy that year and spent six more years flying, which included 16 months in Vietnam.
In June, 1967, he left the Navy again and after an extensive background investigation, he was hired by the Secret Service.
The Secret Service’s responsibilities are two-fold, protective and investigative. The Secret Service protects the President and his family, the Vice President and his family, former presidents, visiting heads of foreign governments or states, major presidential and vice-presidential candidates and others designated by the President.
The Secret Service investigates laws pertaining to the U.S. Treasury Department. That includes counterfeiting, forgery of obligations of the Treasury, computer frauds, threats against the President and others.
Purvis enjoys talking about his job. He overcame great odds to get it. He was one of only 10 agents hired in 1968. Following a 23-hour train ride from Purvis to Washington, he began six months of training. Prior to entering the Secret Service, he had applied for a position as an Air Traffic Controller with the FAA. While in training, he was notified that he had been hired by the FAA. He considered it, but the awesomeness of working for the Secret Service persuaded him to stay where he was, a once in a lifetime opportunity.
His final 30 days of training were spent in the White House with President Johnson. On June 5, at the end of the 30 days, Robert Kennedy, a presidential candidate at the time, was assassinated. Purvis was sent to New York City to protect the President, Vice President and their families, while they attended the funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where he worked one of the check points at the church. Later that day, he flew to Washington for the funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.
Around that time, Congress passed a law providing Secret Service protection for most presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Purvis was assigned to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, where he worked for a month before he was offered an assignment at the LBJ Ranch in Texas flying a Secret Service helicopter.
He spent two and a half years there, where he got to know Johnson and his family, but Johnson never used the helicopter. When Purvis was reassigned, Johnson attended his going-away party and gave him a big hat as a gift.
“Johnson was powerful, manipulative and cunningly smart,” said Purvis. “He had a tremendous talent for evaluating people. He was impatient and he could be crude. He would chew you out. He used to chew me out for things. He had a short fuse. He believed that anyone who worked for him should know it all.”
After leaving the LBJ Ranch, Purvis was assigned to New Orleans. There he was assigned cases involving counterfeiting, forgery and threats against the President.
Occasionally, field agents were assigned to protective details. Once such assignment was with Wallace in 1972, when Wallace was shot and paralyzed. Purvis was a shift leader on the detail and put Wallace on the plane in Montgomery that morning for his trip to Maryland, where he was later shot. Purvis spent the next 30 days in a Maryland hospital with Wallace.
Sometimes Purvis assisted presidential detail agents with security advances for the president and vice president.
“When we did security advances, we would go in eight or nine days ahead of time, check airport security, routes taken by the motorcade, speech sites, or places of residence, in addition to doing hospital surveys in case of an assassination or an attempted assassination,” said Purvis. “The coordination was very detailed and time consuming.”
Purvis was assigned to several offices during his career. He and his family lived in Jackson, Charleston, W.Va., and even Oxford, Miss. He has many stories about his work. Like the time his life was threatened in Marion County while investigating a threat against President Nixon. The subject of the probe pulled a shotgun on him and almost used it. Purvis was able to talk him out of shooting him.
Purvis carried a .357 Magnum, and admits, “I pulled it a couple of times, but I never had to use it.”
“It was an honor being a Special Agent,” he said. “That’s what I cherished the most. And the camaraderie with the other agents. When we went in somewhere, we were respected.”
Upon retirement in 1988, at age 53, Purvis and his family moved back to Purvis. By then, the Secret Service had grown to 1,800 agents. Today, there are 3,500.
Purvis still remains active today. He has played the trumpet for 574 (mostly military) funerals and 50 or so civic events.
In 1994, he began an 11-year stint on the PRCC Development Foundation and can still be seen at many PRCC fund-raising and social events.
PRCC profile
Name: Howell Purvis
Born: Dec. 4, 1934, Canton
Family: Mary Ann (65 years), 2 sons: Dan (Major in Air Force, d’Iberville) and Craig (Jackson); 2 daughters: Joni Powers (Atlanta) and Susan Rene Yawn (Purvis); 9 grandchildren; 6 greatgrandchildren)
Education: Graduated Purvis High School, 1953; graduated PRCC, 1955; graduated University of Southern Mississippi, 1961 (education degree).
Occupation: Special Agent, United States Secret Service, 1968-88, retired.
Residence: Purvis
PRCC Honors: Lifetime Achievement Hall of Fame 2014 and Fine Arts Hall of Fame 2018
For the latest news on Pearl River Community College, visit PRCC.edu and follow us on Twitter (@PRCC_Wildcats), Instagram (PRCCWILDCATS), Facebook (@PRCCMKTG), and TikTok (@prcc_wildcats).
Article by Chuck Abadie. Most photos supplied by Howell Purvis.
