George Bates

George Wade Bates died March 26, 2016, of heart problems at age 89. He will be missed greatly by his family and numerous friends.

George is predeceased in death by his parents, George Monroe Bates and Lillian Ethel Wade Bates, his first wife of 40 years, Dorothy McCauley Bates, a son George Wade Bates Jr., two brothers and one sister.

He is survived by his wife of 20 years, Emma McCoy Bates, two daughters, Judith Bates Sasser of Lillian, AL, and Robin Bates Ramli of San Antonio, TX. He is also survived by two sons, Rev. Samuel Keith Bates of Jefferson, GA, and Roger D Bates of Leeds, AL. In addition he is survived by step daughter Cindy McCoy Beckett of Little Rock, AR, Mark McCoy, Tracy McCoy and family, and one brother, Franklin Evan Bates.

George Bates was raised in the College Heights section of Meridian, MS and completed Meridian High School. He entered the US Army in October 1944 and served in the Third Armored Division of the US First Army in Germany in the Spring of 1945. After the war he served in the occupation of Germany and came home in August 1946. George created and owned the Highland Radio Service Co in Meridian, MS while finishing two years of college at the Meridian, MS Junior College, now the Meridian Community College. He subsequently graduated from The University of Tennessee and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology being selected as a Sloan Scholar.

George worked for the Bell System, starting with the Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Co in Mississippi. As his career advanced he was in Jackson, Meridian, and Tupelo, MS, and Nashville and Memphis, TN, and Summit, NJ, and Boston, MA, and Shreveport, LA, and Atlanta, GA. In 1969 he came to Birmingham, AL in the new South Central Bell Co. that later became part of BellSouth Telecommunications Co. While living in these locations he was active in several civic clubs, family camping, traveling, Amateur Radio and hunting. In Birmingham, he was active in the Historical Radio Society, the Civil War Roundtable, and gardens at a farm he owned in Chilton County, AL.

Over the years George has been a committed Christian as a member of The Methodist Church most recently the First United Methodist Church in Birmingham. Lastly, he has enjoyed the Mountain Brook Baptist Church with his wife Emma (Sally) Bates.

In lieu of flowers the family suggests that a remembrance of George Bates be made to your church or your favorite charity or to the American Heart Association for research in diseases of the heart.

Services will be held on Friday, April 1, 2016 at 12:00pm at Jefferson Memorial Funeral Home. Visitation will be held one hour prior to service time. Burial will follow at Jefferson Memorial Gardens East.