Joe Charles Williams Sr.

Joe Charles Williams Sr., 82, of Augusta, Kansas, and Huntsville, Alabama, passed away Monday, April 20, 2026, at home.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 9, 2026, at Kilgore-Green Funeral Home, located at 1200 Birmingham Ave. in Jasper, Alabama. Visitation begins at 10 a.m. A burial with Honor Guard will follow at Earnest Chapel Cemetery in Oakman, Alabama.

Joe was born in Jasper, Alabama, on Feb. 22, 1944, to the late Opal (Courington) and Henry Williams. He spent his mid-late childhood in an Alabama orphanage in Carbon Hill and his early-mid teens at a state-run Boys Home where he learned hard work and the machining and tooling trades. He dropped out of high school, completed a GED, and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force eight days after his 17th birthday in 1961. Always good at math, he was charged with finance and payroll in his early career. He saw the world in the first few years of his service — Washington D.C., during President Kennedy’s funeral; Peshawar, Pakistan, where his appendix was removed by a Pakistani surgeon at a remote air base nearby; a year in South Korea shortly after that war ended; and another year in Vietnam during that war. He also lived in Texas, California, Montana, Arkansas, Germany and Maine. His last station was McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, where he retired from duty on July 31, 1982. He started a new career as a Contracts Manager at Wichita’s Boeing Military Airplane Company, transferring to Boeing’s Huntsville, Alabama, facility in 1989, where he retired in 2009. Between Korea and Vietnam, he met Betty Jean Williams of Oakman, Alabama, and they were married from January 7, 1966, until Betty passed away in 2024. They have three sons — Joey, Ronald, and Stephen. Joe loved the outdoors — hunting, fishing and gardening everywhere he lived. His vegetable gardening was extraordinary, planting a bit of everything and even growing tomatoes in a crate on the balcony of their Germany apartment. He also loved bowling, and his second home was the local bowling alley, where he bowled in leagues until he was almost 80.

He was preceded in death by Betty and his sisters, Nettie Mae Young and Carolyne Jo.

He is survived by his son, Joe Williams II and wife Kristey, and their children, Sydney, Sadie, Holt and Halle of Augusta, Kansas; son, Ronald Williams and wife Cindy, and their children, Brigid and Amity of Los Angeles, California; son, Stephen Williams and wife Leslie, and their children, Bailey and Dylan of Virginia Beach, Virginia; brother, Dwayne Williams and wife Fran of Cedaredge, Colorado; sister, Cynthia of Graysville, Alabama; and many nieces and nephews.

He lived quite a journey and will be missed.

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