The Reverend Bobby D. Williams, 84, from Dixie, Tennessee, a minister in West Tennessee Presbytery, a farmer, and an educator, died October 19, 2020, in Paducah, Kentucky, of COVID-19. He had been hospitalized for two weeks and on a ventilator for twelve days. His wife, Beth, stated, “I know he is in a better place and praise God he is not suffering any longer. I miss him dearly and I thank God for the blessing of serving alongside him.”
Born May 20, 1936, in Union City, Obion County, Tennessee, to Elbert and Pearlie Mae Yates Williams, Bobby was raised near the Dixie community, about half way between Union City and Reelfoot Lake, and educated in the Dixie School which once served all grades. He graduated in 1954. He then attended Bethel College (now Bethel University) in McKenzie, Tennessee, and graduated in 1957.
Bobby was baptized by the Reverend A.T. Evans at the Antioch Union Church, seven miles northwest of Union City, in 1945 and joined the church. Antioch was a congregation made up of both Cumberland Presbyterians and Methodists. Bobby came under the care of Obion Presbytery in 1955, was licensed in 1956, and was ordained in 1957. The Reverend Oakely Woodside preached rhe ordination sermon and the Reverend Edwin Bond delivered the charge.
Bobby married Benita Sims of Mason Hall, Tennessee, January 28, 1955, she died February 24, 2000. He married Beth Scarborough Huff December 1, 2001. Bobby and Benita had one son, Bobby Timothy Williams, born October 6, 1959.
After college graduation, Bobby continued his studies at Bethel and at Dyersburg State Community College taking classes through the 1960s and early-1970s. He completed the program at DSCC in 1974. He was a teacher in the Obion County School System from 1957 to 1978, mostly at the Dixie School. He received his Masters of Theology in 1993 and his Doctorate of Theology in 1995 both from the Andersonville Baptist Seminary (now Andersonville Theological Seminary) in Camilla, Georgia. Andersonville describes itself as an evangelical Baptist institution and specializes in distance learning, offering courses by mail and over the Internet.
The Mt. Ararat Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Obion County called Bobby in 1956 and he served them until 2002. He also occasionally served the Goodsprings Cumberland Presbyterian Church at Dukedom, Tennessee, and, from 1958 to 1962, the Troy, Tennessee, Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Bobby was most recently pastor of Beech Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Obion County near Troy. All of these congregations were members of Obion Presbytery until middle judicatory realignment in 1989, and then became part of West Tennessee Presbytery.
