Dr. William Bailey Dragoin

Dr. William B. Dragoin of Americus, Georgia passed away at his home December 23, 2023. Bill, as he was known by all, was born in 1939 in Dothan, Alabama. The youngest son and baby of the family, Bill was the fourth child of Lillian Odessa Bailey and Anthony "Andy" Dragoin, who were both agents for the railroad. He was proud of his very modern working mother, his raconteur father, and his rural upbringing, tempered by rides on the trains to New Orleans and St Louis which provided him with many of the good stories he loved to tell. He was doted on by his older sisters Peggy and Shirley, and he survived the times when he was left in the care of his brother, Anthony "Sonny" Dragoin, who was twelve years his senior.Bill joined the Army in 1957 (in retaliation for his mother's taking away the car keys to the Thunderbird) and was stationed until 1960 in Berlin in the Security Agency in communication intelligence. In those three years he explored western Europe as only a teenager from rural Alabama could—taking a...