John Betts McCutcheon was born in Latta, South Carolina on August 23, 1915, the son of John Betts McCutcheon and Mary Galloway McCutcheon. John McCutcheon married Adelyn Goldfinch McCutcheon in 1940. They have three children, John Betts McCutcheon, Jr., Mary Ruth McCutcheon Baxter and William Stone McCutcheon; and four grandchildren.
John McCutcheon has been described as a man of the PeeDee. He was educated in the public schools of South Carolina and graduated from Conway High School in 1932. He was president of the Senior Class and on the State Debating Team. Mr. McCutcheon then attended Erskine College where he was very active in forensics and won first place in the South Carolina Intercollegiate Oratorical Contest. Upon graduation from Erskine College in 1936, Mr. McCutcheon attended Law School at the University of South Carolina where he was a member of the Blue Key National Honor Fraternity, President of the Law Federation and Chief Justice of the Order of Wig and Robe. His scholastic abilities were recognized when he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Upon gradation in 1939, he entered the practice of law.
Mr. McCutcheon was a member of the American, South Carolina and Horry County Bar Associations, and President of the Horry County Bar in 1964. Mr. McCutcheon was a member of the South Carolina Judicial Council from 1956–1958; the South Carolina Bar Council from 1968–1971; the South Carolina Supreme Court Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline from 1972–1975; the International Association of Insurance Council; and the South Carolina Defense Trial Attorneys Association. He was a Fellow of The American College of Trial Lawyers and a member of the University of South Carolina Law School Partnership Board, from 1991 to 1996.
Mr. McCutcheon actively practiced law for 50 years and was the fonder of the law firm of McCutcheon, McCutcheon & Baxter, P.A. in Conway, South Carolina, the predecessor of which was established in 1946.
Mr. McCutcheon was a Trustee of the Conway Schools, from 1948–1950 and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Conway Schools in 1949. He was one of the original members of the Board of Directors, of Waccamaw Clay Products, Inc., a member of the Conway Hospital Board of Directors, from 1954–1959; a director of the Conway Hospital Foundation and a director of the Costal Carolina College Foundation.
Mr. McCutcheon’s church was foremost with him. He served as an officer in many capacities with the First United Methodist Church and he organized and taught the John B. McCutcheon Sunday School Class for forty years. Early Sunday morning was a quiet time at his home while he prepared for teaching his Sunday School Class.
Mr. McCutcheon was a man of great intellectual and legal ability, but, looking beyond such attributes, he was a man of personal grace, dignity and respect for God and man.