William Whitfield Varnedoe Jr.

Bill was born, 11 June 1923, in Savannah, Georgia. He attended grade school in Montgomery, Alabama, graduated from Murphy High School in Mobile, Alabama and received his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from GA Tech in 1947.

Huntsville was good to him for it was here that he was led by the Lord to meet and marry Louise Thomas. He has four children, Sharon Rudd, W. Frank Varnedoe, John C. Varnedoe and Ker T. Varnedoe. He has eight grandchildren and numerous great grandchildren. He is a born again Christian, a member of Calvary Bible Baptist Church and a member of The Gideons International.

His first job was working for the Navy doing mine and torpedo countermeasures research. But, he moved to Huntsville, Alabama in June 1952 to work as an electrical engineer for the Army Guided Missile Development Division which later became Army Ballistic Missile Agency. He worked with Von Braun on the Redstone, Jupiter and Pershing missile systems. When ABMA became NASA in 1960 he went with the Saturn program that put men on the moon. He retired from NASA in 1979.

Bill was a veteran. During WW II he served as a 1st Lt. Navigator on a B-17 in the 8th Army Air Force, 385th Bomb Group. He flew 26 missions over Germany. He left the military after the war to pursue his career as an engineer. He wrote and published a history of his 385th Bomb Group and served a term as President of the 385th Bomb Group Association, an organization of 385 BG veterans. As a member and founder of the North Alabama Chapter of the 8th Air Force Historical Society, he helped build a replica air force briefing room in the Veterans Memorial Museum.

Bill was a State Certified Firefighter. He organized the Green Mountain Volunteer Fire Department and served 30 years as its Chief. This Fire Department's response area obtained an excellent insurance rating, an ISO of 3, while Bill was Chief. He continued to serve many years in the Fire Service. Bill was one of the founding members of the Madison County Association of Volunteer Fire Departments. He has published several articles on firefighting in fire service journals.

Bill was well known, both in the U.S. and abroad, as an active caver and speleologist. He was a consulting engineer putting lights and trails in Cathedral Caverns State Park. He has published a book about Cathedral Caverns. He founded the Huntsville Grotto of the National Speleological Society and let a surveying group from the Grotto in making the detailed, complete map of Cathedral Caverns as well as many other Alabama caves. He has published several books on Alabama Caves and presented numerous papers and articles on speleology. In 1984, he received the McKinney Award of the Southeastern Region. In 1988, he was awarded the National Speleological Society's prestigious Stephenson Award, the highest recognition the society offers. He was the Chief of the local Cave Rescue Unit for 25 years and conducted many cave rescues.

Bill was an amateur radio operator, with an advanced FCC license, W4TKL. He achieved the WAS (worked all states) and WAC (worked all continents) awards. He served a term as the State Emergency Coordinator for Alabama.

Bill was a hiker, an active volunteer of the Land Trust of Huntsville and North Alabama. He and his wife laid out many trails on Land Trust property that were later opened to the public, including the trail inside of Three Caves and a trail on Green Mountain that bears the name, Varnedoe Trail.

He and Louise liked to travel to off-the-beaten-path. They have been to both the Nepalese (a 300 mile hike) and Tibetan sides of Mt. Everest. They have gone to the Marquesas Islands on a copra trading boat, been to the Alta Verapaz region of Guatemala on a caving expedition, and caved in South Africa, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, hiked down the Tasman Glacier in New Zealand, helped a missionary build a house in the remote bush of New Britian Island of Papua New Guinea, hiked trails in the Andes of Peru, rounded Cape Horn in Patagonia and other such way-out places as well as hiking in the European Alps, visiting and caving in England and Spain.

You may visit with the family on Monday, June 13, 2022 from 1:00pm until 1:30pm at Calvary Bible Church, 607 Drake Avenue SE, Huntsville, AL 35802. Celebration of Life Service will begin at 1:30pm.

Interment, with Military and Fireman's Honors will immediately follow at Valhalla Memory Gardens, 698 Winchester Road NE, Huntsville, AL 35811.

In lieu of flowers please make donations to the Green Mountain Volunteer Fire Department or the US Veterans Memorial Museum. Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.valhallafunerals.com for the Varnedoe family.