Funeral services celebrating the life of Billy Brooks Hudson will be at Cypress Baptist Church on Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 12 noon with Reverend Tommy Patton officiating. Interment will follow at Hill Crest Memorial Park. Visitation will be from 11:00 to 12:00 preceding the service.
Billy was born in El Dorado, Arkansas on February 13, 1922, reared in Red Land Community, and attended school in Plain Dealing. He was a proud member of the State Runner-Up Football Team in 1939, as well as the Track Teams that won State Championships in 1939, 1940, and 1941. In 1940, he set a State High School record in the “440 yard dash”. His “440 yard dash” time at the 1941 Tri State Track Meet set a record that he held for twenty years.
He attended LSU on an athletic scholarship 1941 and joined the Army Air Force at the outbreak of World War II. He was stationed in Altus, Oklahoma and served in Myitkyina, Burma during the War. After being discharged from the service with the rank of Staff Sgt., he enrolled at Northwestern State University. While at Northwestern, he was a member of the track team that won Conference titles in 1946 and 1947. He helped the team by winning all of his races. He graduated from Northwestern, married his sweetheart, Marguerite White and took his first job as coach at Ouachita Parish High School, all on the same day. He went on to coach at Haynesville High School and Bossier High School. Billy remembered the many young men he coached with great fondness and always hoped that he was able to help them on their life paths.
After more than forty years as an educator, he retired to his home in Benton where he enjoyed fishing and playing with his grandsons, traveling to South Texas in his motorhome, and water skiing in Arkansas. Billy, a lifelong Baptist, served his churches as a Sunday School Teacher and Deacon. He was also proud to be known as a Northwestern Demon and a member of the “N” Club as well as the Northwestern State Athletic Hall of Fame.
Billy was predeceased by his wife of sixty-seven years, Marguerite White Hudson; his parents, John Wesley Hudson and Mamie Spurlin Hudson; his brother, John Hudson, his in-laws, George and Beedie White, Ezell Johnson and Herman White as well as close friends, Joe Scoggin and Bob Bennett and special cousin, Rex Hudson.
He is survived by his daughter, Brookie Hudson Walker and her husband Joe Walker; grandsons, John Brooks Walker and fiancée Chelsey Morgan and William James Walker and wife Katie.
Pallbearers will be John Brooks Walker, William Walker, Richard Cunningham, Richard Cunningham Jr., John Perry Johnson, Sandy Ewing, Parker Ewing, and Boyce Pate. Honorary pallbearers are Calvin Hudson, Ronald Mitchell, Earl Haynes, Red Smith, Bill Toner, Roy Underwood, Joe B. Covington, Greg White and George White.
Memorials may be made to the Marguerite and Billy Hudson Scholarship Fund at Northwestern State University.
