Billy Theron Green, Sr. gave up what he called his “earth suit” on February 11, 2025, after an extended battle with dementia and joined believing family and friends in Heaven with Jesus. He was born January 1, 1938, in Treutlen County, Georgia, lived a long and productive life serving our Lord.
He graduated from Soperton High School in 1955 and continued his education at Georgia Military College in Milledgeville on a football scholarship. He was recruited by Wally Butts, head coach at the University of Georgia, but declined and graduated in 1960 from Georgia Southern College. During those years, he met Mary Ann Hodges. After convincing his parents that “two can live as cheaply as one”, she became the love of his life, and they were married over fifty years until her death.
When he graduated from college, he and his new bride ventured to Decatur, Georgia, where he became Public Sanitarian for Rockdale County for some years and then went into the life insurance business, were he was highly successful. Year after year he sold over a million dollars of life insurance and won several trips abroad. Their only child, Billy, was born in Decatur. Wanting to return to Mary Ann’s home in Statesboro, he continued his business there.
Bill was strong witness for the Lord, and if you were around him long, he would ask you “Are you a believer?”. He often picked up hitchhikers, much to his family’s displeasure, and shared his faith with them often spoking in churches. He was a serious Bible student, calling it the “Manufacturer’s handbook”. Being a co-founding member of Fletcher Memorial Baptist Church in Statesboro, he served as treasurer for many years.
Bill had a servant spirit, and helped care for many, including a paraplegic brother-in-law (Phil); his parents Harold and Myrtle Green, visiting them every Thursday fifty miles away until their death; and, his wife, Mary Ann, through some twenty-eight back surgeries until her deaths.
He is fondly and widely remembered as a winsome greeter at First Baptist Statesboro wearing his cowboy hat and boots. A year or so after Mary Ann’s passing, he met Marty there, they married when he was eighty, and she served him faithfully through his difficult decline.
He is survived by his wife, Marty, his son, Billy, a grandson, Mark, a brother-in-law, Ray Hodges, several stepchildren, two brothers James of Eastman (wife, Helen) and their children, Bob, (wife, Martha) of Register, and their children, and numerous cousins.
His final resting place is in his home cemetery, Harmony Baptist Church, Soperton, beside his beloved first wife, Mary Ann near his parents. The graveside service will be there at 2:00 P.M. on Friday, February 14, 2025.