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Caswell County Genealogy
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1954 - 2008 (53 years)
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Name |
Rawi, Sayed Hussein |
Birth |
3 Feb 1954 |
Gender |
Male |
Reference Number |
34950 |
Death |
17 Jan 2008 |
Caswell County, North Carolina |
Person ID |
I34274 |
Caswell County |
Last Modified |
11 Mar 2024 |
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Notes |
- Sayed Hussein Rawi
(for larger image, click on photograph)
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Times-News (Burlington, North Carolina) (17 January 2008)
The owner of a Caswell County convenience store was shot to death Thursday afternoon during an armed robbery. Caswell County Sheriff Michael Welch said that shortly before 3 p.m., three men entered the Times Three convenience store on rural N.C. 158 intending to commit a robbery. Sayed Rawi, the store's owner, was shot and killed during the robbery. The suspects, who are believed to have gotten away with cash, were last seen getting into a black older model Acura sedan with silver tinted windows. They were only described as black men.
Welch said his department has asked the Alamance County and Rockingham County sheriff's departments to help them find the vehicle. The SBI is also assisting with the investigation. "We are trying to gather as much information as we can," he said, adding that investigators are looking at the store's surveillance video. Welch said this is not the first time the store has been victimized, though he didn’t think the instances were related.
Stunned residents standing in front of a duplex directly across the street from the convenience store said Rawi lived in the small home with his wife next to his convenience store. "He was a nice person," said Frances Bloom. "He got along with everybody." Bloom's son-in-law, Richard Beasley, said he had just bought a pack of cigarettes from Rawi earlier in the day. "He was a hard-working and cautious guy," he said. "I heard he had a gun, but I had never seen it." This is the second homicide in Caswell County since the beginning of the year, according to Welch. His department is also investigating a domestic-related homicide that happened earlier this week.
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Sayed Rawi: A Tribute
In Memory of Sayed Rawi
"Art - like music - creates a harmony of light, so, no surprise that the great masters of music like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Vivaldi, Liszt, Chopin, and Schubert, are poetic elements in the mosaic of instruments within my canvas."
Sayed Rawi was tragically killed yesterday, January 17, 2008. Someone once called him the Artist of the Yancey House . . . and it is true. . . not because of his unique artwork that hangs on the walls but because of his heart. A heart filled with joy and love and enthusiasm . . . a heart as light as a feather.
Sayed, an Egyptian by birth, once told Michael a story from The Book of the Dead (known to the ancient Egyptians as prt m hrw 'Coming Forth by Day') .A deceased Egyptian, Ani, is led to the chamber of his judgment and stands before a huge scale. On one side of the scale, Ani's heart is placed in a jar. On the other side of the scale is a feather.. If one's heart were heavy with regret or the pull of selfish desires, then Ani could not enter heaven. The soul can only live forever if the heart is as light as a feather.
From the moment we purchased the Yancey House, Sayed supported us, encouraged us, offering his services, his enthusiasm, as well as his art works. His life is a lesson for all of us to lift our thoughts and let our hearts be filled with hope and joy, and become, has his soul has become, as "light as a feather."
In August 2007, Sayed took on a new fundraising project - the Caswell County Animal Shelter. Rawi said animals often display somewhat supernatural characteristics. He recalled the mysterious story of a childhood neighbor in Egypt. "She could not have children," Rawi said. "Her doctor told her so. "My mother told me the story and I tell it to you now," he said. "One day a black cat showed up at her house and she took it in. She fed it and cared for it and loved it. "One day it disappeared and within weeks the woman was pregnant," he said. "The boy she had grew up to be my friend, a community leader and a dentist. It was because she was kind to the cat."
Rawi nodded, remembering the story even as he began another. "There was another woman who beat a cat almost to death," he said. "Then she found out within days her three daughters had also been beaten." Myth, urban legend or truth -- it doesn't matter. The point of the stories, he said, is to be kind to animals, especially to cats, and to treat them as though they were dead relatives who have come back to visit.
Sayed's Support of Yancey Village Preservation: Art from the Heart
In February 2007, Yancey Village Preservation, YH's non-profit organization, had a silent auction to benefit Caswell County's Gunn Memorial Library. This is the artwork that Sayed donated.
Sayed Rawi: Artists We Love
Sayed Rawi: The Yancey House Artist
Register and Bee Article on Sayed and His Love for Animals
Art For Egypt Gallery
Copyright 2008 Yancey House Restaurant and Gallery
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A Tribute to Sayed Rawi
For several years Sayed was known as the "Yancey House Artist." His work filled the walls with joy and excitement. I admired his extraordinary talent and enthusiasm.
Sayed was from Egypt. It grieves me to think about him escaping the death squads in Cairo several times, only to be tragically killed in 2008 by several teenagers at his Casville convenience store (which was also his studio). A tragic loss for Caswell County.
Lucindy Willis and I are shown below with several of Sayed’s paintings, which now need a home.
Source: Shirley Cadmus Post to her Facebook Page 1 December 2017.
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Artist Originally from Egypt Paints Portraits, Then Donates Proceeds to Help Animal Shelter
His early obsession with fashion helped him escape Egyptian death squads in his native Cairo. His passion for art, love and . . . helped him escape Egypt. "As a young man I was very into fashion," Sayed Rawi said Tuesday. "I would wear one outfit in the morning, then change into another outfit in the afternoon."
Unbeknownst to him at the time, he said, men who resembled him in stature and . . . and with the same last name, died as the death squads sought to silance him.
"I was very outspoken," Rawi said. "Egypt is not a place to be outspoken."
Since he first came to the United States in the 1980s to get his master's degree in marketing, however, Rawi has been free to speak, paint and contribute his time and talents to his community of Casville, N.C.
Rawi has take full advantage of his freedom, using it not only to benefit community fundraising efforts, but also as a way to express the magical and spiritual benefits pets bring to their owners.
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