William W. Helvie

William Wallace "Bill" Helvie III, M.D. (79) passed January 11, 2024. Dr. Helvie was a sensitive, loving and generous individual, father, husband, partner and physician. He will be greatly and deeply missed and his memory fondly cherished forever.Dr. Helvie was born to Vera Mae (Duke) Helvie and William Wallace "Billie" Helvie II on June 24, 1944 in Lucedale, MS. He spent his childhood growing up in Lucedale, MS and Caracas and Maricaibo, Venezuela, of which he remembered and recounted with fondness. He attended Georgia Military Academy in College Park, GA from 1958-1962 graduating Top Cadet of his class. Billy was appointed to West Point but decided to become a radiation oncologist. Dr. Helvie is a graduate of Auburn University and Tulane Medical School, class of '71. He performed his rotating radiology internship and mixed radiology residency at Oschner Medical Clinic in New Orleans, LA, before serving his second and third year residencies in the department of radiation therapy at the U.S. Naval Hospital in San Diego and San Francisco, the Persidio under the Berry Plan. While in school for training in Alabama he was in the Army. The Army loaned him to the Navy and promoted him to the rank of Major William Wallace III Helvie MD. The Navy sent him to San Francisco to become the Chief of Radiation Oncology at the Letterman Army Medical Center. He then returned to New Orleans practicing at Mercy Hospital for a brief time. Dr. Helvie practiced Radiation Oncology from 1977 certified in therapeutic radiology by the American Board of Radiology. In addition to his great leadership as a founding partner at Montgomery Cancer Center, he has directed the radiation therapy departments for Jackson and Baptist Hospital in Montgomery, AL and the Letterman Army Medical Center in San Francisco, CA. He was accredited as “Dr. William Wallace Helvie, III MD, FACRO. He has also served as a consultant in radiotherapy at the U.S. Public Health Hospital as well as the Veteran's Administration Hospital, both in San Francisco. He has taught at Tulane Medical Center Hospital in New Orleans as a clinical associate professor and is past president of the Alabama Society of Radiation Oncologists. Dr. Helvie is survived by Love of His Life of 30 years, Elizabeth Dupree Lynch of Atlanta, GA, children Stuart P. Bell and Lauren E. Helvie, granddaughter Farrah S. Voclain and former spouse Diane M. Helvie, all of New Orleans, LA.