Early Life
McColl was born in Bennettsville, South Carolina, along with a sister and two brothers, to Hugh Leon McColl (1905–1994, cotton farmer and banker) and Frances Pratt Carroll McColl (1906–1987, artist). McColl's great-grandfather, Duncon Donald McColl (1842–1911, attorney) had brought the first railroad (the 50-mile (80 km) South Carolina & Pacific) as well as the first cotton mills to Marlboro County — and had founded the Bank of Marlboro, later headed by McColl's grandfather (Hugh L. McColl, 1874–1931), followed by his father.
McColl's father liquidated the Bank of Marlboro in 1939, and later bought a controlling interest in Marlboro Trust Co. McColl went to work at age 14 for the trust company and his father’s cotton company, McColl Cotton Mills — keeping books, securing payments, learning double-entry accounting and driving across North and South Carolina to make deposits.
McColl was his Bennettsville High School's student council president, was class president his senior year (1953) and was voted Best All-Round Boy in his senior class. His yearbook quotation read: "He who is talented in leadership holds the world's dream in his grip."
After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, McColl joined the United States Marine Corps and served a two year tour of duty. Honorably discharged, he returned to North Carolina. Hugh McColl Sr. directed his son to banking, telling him he "didn't have the brains for farming."
McColl declined an offer from his father-in-law, John McKee Spratt (1907–1973, banker, attorney, judge), to work at the Bank of Fort Mill, a small family-owned bank, but let his father arrange an introduction at another bank. Subsequently, young McColl went to work as a management trainee for American Commercial Bank in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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