Former Guilford County Commissioner Warren Dorsett passed away recently at the age of 91.  Dorsett, who served on the Guilford County Board of Commissioners from 1993 to 2002, died at Hospice Home at High Point.

Dorsett, a former teacher with Guilford County Schools, took the seat of his wife, former state Sen. Katie Dorsett, on the Board of Commissioners in early 1993.  She resigned from that board after former NC Governor Jim Hunt appointed her secretary of the North Carolina Department of Administration.

The county commissioners’ districts have shifted since he served on the board, but Warren Dorsett, like his wife, represented District 9, which included much of east Greensboro.  Dorsett was in his 60s when he joined the board.  In 2002, he didn’t seek reelection after serving as a commissioner for nearly a decade.

In 1997 while serving as a county commissioner Dorsett found himself in the the unusual position of suing the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. Dorsett and Isaac Barnett filed a lawsuit against the Board of Commissioners after they were both removed from the Guilford County Board of Social Services.  Dorsett and Barnett were returned to the board as part of a complicated political deal and they dropped the lawsuit.

Before becoming a county commissioner, Dorsett served on the Greensboro Zoning Commission and also served as a precinct chairman for the Democratic Party.

Guilford County Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen, a former Democratic commissioner who served with Dorsett on the Board of Commissioners from 1998 to 2002, said he remembers well the lively discussions he had in those years with Dorsett, Commissioner Skip Alston and former Commissioner Bob Landreth, who died in 2018.

Thigpen said Dorsett was dedicated to the Democratic Party and what it stood for.

“He was really committed to education in Guilford County and really committed to the issues of the Department of Social Services,” Thigpen said.  “He was an advocate for Democratic ideals.”

A celebration of Dorsett’s life will be held on Thursday, Jan. 17 at Bethel AME Church at 200 N Regan St, Greensboro. Visitation with the family will begin at 11 a.m., followed by a noon service.  The burial will then follow at Maplewood Cemetery.